You consider yourself a lion among the nations,
    but you are like a dragon in the seas;
you thrash about in your streams,
    trouble the water with your feet,
    and foul your^[a] streams.^(A)
3 Thus says the Lord God:
    In an assembly of many peoples
    I will throw my net over you,
    and I^[b] will haul you up in my dragnet.^(B)

⁷ He has walled me about so that I cannot escape;
    he has put heavy chains on me;^(A)

41 ^[a]“Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook
    or press down its tongue with a cord?^(A)
2 Can you put a rope in its nose
    or pierce its jaw with a hook?^(B)
3 Will it make many supplications to you?
    Will it speak soft words to you?
⁴ Will it make a covenant with you
    to be taken as your servant forever?
⁵ Will you play with it as with a bird
    or put it on a leash for your young women?
⁶ Will traders bargain over it?
    Will they divide it up among the merchants?
⁷ Can you fill its skin with harpoons
    or its head with fishing spears?
⁸ Lay hands on it;
    think of the battle; you will not do it again!
^9 [b]Any hope of capturing it^[c] will be disappointed;
    one is overwhelmed even at the sight of it.
¹⁰ No one is so fierce as to dare to stir it up.
    Who can stand before it?^[d](C)
11 Who can confront it^[e] and be safe?^[f]
    —under the whole heaven, who?^[g](D)

¹² “I will not keep silent concerning its limbs
    or its mighty strength or its splendid frame.
¹³ Who can strip off its outer garment?
    Who can penetrate its double coat of mail?^[h]
14 Who can open the doors of its face?
    There is terror all around its teeth.
¹⁵ Its back^[i] is made of shields in rows,
    shut up closely as with a seal.
¹⁶ One is so near to another
    that no air can come between them.
¹⁷ They are joined one to another;
    they clasp each other and cannot be separated.
¹⁸ Its sneezes flash forth light,
    and its eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn.^(E)
19 From its mouth go flaming torches;
    sparks of fire leap out.
²⁰ Out of its nostrils comes smoke,
    as from a boiling pot and burning rushes.
²¹ Its breath kindles coals,
    and a flame comes out of its mouth.
²² In its neck abides strength,
    and terror dances before it.
²³ The folds of its flesh cling together;
    it is firmly cast and immovable.
²⁴ Its heart is as hard as stone,
    as hard as the lower millstone.
²⁵ When it raises itself up the gods are afraid;
    at the crashing they are beside themselves.
²⁶ Though the sword reaches it, it does not avail,
    nor does the spear, the dart, or the javelin.
²⁷ It counts iron as straw
    and bronze as rotten wood.
²⁸ The arrow cannot make it flee;
    slingstones, for it, are turned to chaff.
²⁹ Clubs are counted as chaff;
    it laughs at the rattle of javelins.
³⁰ Its underparts are like sharp potsherds;
    it spreads itself like a threshing sledge on the mire.
³¹ It makes the deep boil like a pot;
    it makes the sea like a pot of ointment.
³² It leaves a shining wake behind it;
    one would think the deep to be white-haired.
³³ On earth it has no equal,
    a creature without fear.^(F)
34 It surveys everything that is lofty;
    it is king over all that are proud.”

⁸ “Or who shut in the sea with doors
    when it burst out from the womb,^(C)
9 when I made the clouds its garment
    and thick darkness its swaddling band,^(D)
10 and prescribed bounds for it,
    and set bars and doors,^(E)
11 and said, ‘Thus far shall you come and no farther,
    and here shall your proud waves be stopped’?^(F)