Job 38:12-38
Christian Standard Bible
12 Have you ever in your life commanded the morning
or assigned the dawn its place,
13 so it may seize the edges of the earth
and shake the wicked out of it?
14 The earth is changed as clay is by a seal;
its hills stand out like the folds of a garment.
15 Light[a] is withheld from the wicked,
and the arm raised in violence is broken.
16 Have you traveled to the sources of the sea
or walked in the depths of the oceans?
17 Have the gates(A) of death been revealed to you?
Have you seen the gates of deep darkness?
18 Have you comprehended the extent of the earth?
Tell me, if you know all this.
19 Where is the road to the home of light?
Do you know where darkness lives,
20 so you can lead it back to its border?
Are you familiar with the paths to its home?
21 Don’t you know? You were already born;(B)
you have lived so long![b]
22 Have you entered the place where the snow is stored?
Or have you seen the storehouses of hail,(C)
23 which I hold in reserve for times of trouble,
for the day of warfare and battle?(D)
24 What road leads to the place where light is dispersed?[c]
Where is the source of the east wind that spreads across the earth?
25 Who cuts a channel for the flooding rain
or clears the way for lightning,
26 to bring rain on an uninhabited land,
on a desert with no human life,[d]
27 to satisfy the parched wasteland
and cause the grass to sprout?(E)
28 Does the rain have a father?
Who fathered the drops of dew?(F)
29 Whose womb did the ice come from?
Who gave birth to the frost of heaven
30 when water becomes as hard as stone,[e]
and the surface of the watery depths is frozen?(G)
31 Can you fasten the chains of the Pleiades
or loosen the belt of Orion?
32 Can you bring out the constellations[f] in their season
and lead the Bear[g] and her cubs?(H)
33 Do you know the laws(I) of heaven?
Can you impose its[h] authority on earth?
34 Can you command[i] the clouds
so that a flood of water covers you?(J)
35 Can you send out lightning(K) bolts, and they go?
Do they report to you, “Here we are”?
36 Who put wisdom(L) in the heart[j]
or gave the mind understanding?
37 Who has the wisdom to number the clouds?
Or who can tilt the water jars of heaven
38 when the dust hardens like cast metal
and the clods of dirt stick together?
Footnotes
- 38:15 Lit Their light
- 38:21 Lit born; the number of your days is great
- 38:24 Or where lightning is distributed
- 38:26 Lit no man in it
- 38:30 Lit water hides itself as the stone
- 38:32 Or Mazzaroth; Hb obscure
- 38:32 Or lead Aldebaran
- 38:33 Or God’s
- 38:34 Lit lift up your voice to
- 38:36 Or the inner self; Ps 51:6
The Christian Standard Bible. Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible®, and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers, all rights reserved.
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