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“Just ask the animals, and they will teach you.
    Ask the birds of the sky, and they will tell you.
Speak to the earth, and it will instruct you.
    Let the fish in the sea speak to you.
For they all know
    that my disaster[a] has come from the hand of the Lord.
10 For the life of every living thing is in his hand,
    and the breath of every human being.
11 The ear tests the words it hears
    just as the mouth distinguishes between foods.
12 Wisdom belongs to the aged,
    and understanding to the old.

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Footnotes

  1. 12:9 Hebrew that this.

But ask Behemoth, and he will teach you,
    the birds in the sky, and they will tell you;
    or talk to earth, and it will teach you;
    the fish of the sea will recount it for you.
Among all these, who hasn’t known
    that the Lord’s hand did this?
10 In whose grasp is the life of every thing,
    the breath of every person?
11 Doesn’t the ear test words
    and the palate taste food?
12 “In old age is wisdom;
    understanding in a long life.”

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