¹² Am I a sea monster or a dragon
    that you must place me under guard?

“You think of yourself as a strong young lion among the nations,
    but you are really just a sea monster,
heaving around in your own rivers,
    stirring up mud with your feet.
³ Therefore, this is what the Sovereign Lord says:
I will send many people
    to catch you in my net
    and haul you out of the water.

⁷ He has walled me in, and I cannot escape.
    He has bound me in heavy chains.

¹² “I want to emphasize Leviathan’s limbs
    and its enormous strength and graceful form.
¹³ Who can strip off its hide,
    and who can penetrate its double layer of armor?^[d]
14 Who could pry open its jaws?
    For its teeth are terrible!
¹⁵ The scales on its back are like^[e] rows of shields
    tightly sealed together.
¹⁶ They are so close together
    that no air can get between them.
¹⁷ Each scale sticks tight to the next.
    They interlock and cannot be penetrated.

¹⁸ “When it sneezes, it flashes light!
    Its eyes are like the red of dawn.
¹⁹ Lightning leaps from its mouth;
    flames of fire flash out.
²⁰ Smoke streams from its nostrils
    like steam from a pot heated over burning rushes.
²¹ Its breath would kindle coals,
    for flames shoot from its mouth.

²² “The tremendous strength in Leviathan’s neck
    strikes terror wherever it goes.
²³ Its flesh is hard and firm
    and cannot be penetrated.
²⁴ Its heart is hard as rock,
    hard as a millstone.
²⁵ When it rises, the mighty are afraid,
    gripped by terror.
²⁶ No sword can stop it,
    no spear, dart, or javelin.
²⁷ Iron is nothing but straw to that creature,
    and bronze is like rotten wood.
²⁸ Arrows cannot make it flee.
    Stones shot from a sling are like bits of grass.
²⁹ Clubs are like a blade of grass,
    and it laughs at the swish of javelins.
³⁰ Its belly is covered with scales as sharp as glass.
    It plows up the ground as it drags through the mud.

³¹ “Leviathan makes the water boil with its commotion.
    It stirs the depths like a pot of ointment.
³² The water glistens in its wake,
    making the sea look white.
³³ Nothing on earth is its equal,
    no other creature so fearless.
³⁴ Of all the creatures, it is the proudest.
    It is the king of beasts.”

⁶ What supports its foundations,
    and who laid its cornerstone
⁷ as the morning stars sang together
    and all the angels^[a] shouted for joy?

⁸ “Who kept the sea inside its boundaries
    as it burst from the womb,
⁹ and as I clothed it with clouds
    and wrapped it in thick darkness?
¹⁰ For I locked it behind barred gates,
    limiting its shores.
¹¹ I said, ‘This far and no farther will you come.
    Here your proud waves must stop!’

¹⁷ “What are people, that you should make so much of us,
    that you should think of us so often?