Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

³⁹ Can you hunt prey for a lioness?
Can you satisfy the appetite of the young lions,
⁴⁰ when they crouch in their dens,
or they lie in wait in the thicket?

⁴¹ Who prepares its provisions for the raven,
when its young are screaming to God,
while they thrash around in the nest waiting for food?

39 Do you know the time when the antelope on the cliffs gives birth?
Do you keep watch over the doe as she is in labor?
² Do you count how many months they carry their young?
Do you know when it is time for them to give birth?
³ They crouch down.
They give birth to their fawns.
Their labor pains are over.
⁴ Their young are lively and live in the open countryside.
They go out, and they do not return to them.
⁵ Who set the wild donkey free?
Who untied the restraints on the onager?^[a]
6 I have given it the wasteland^[b] as its home,
the salt flats as its dwelling place.
⁷ It brays at the commotion in a town.
It does not listen to the shouting of the driver.
⁸ It explores the mountains as its pasture,
while it searches for anything green.

⁹ Is a wild ox willing to serve you?
Will it spend the night at your manger?
¹⁰ Can you lead the wild ox down a furrow with a rope?
Will it work the fields in the valleys behind you?
¹¹ Will you depend on it because it is so strong?
Will you rely on it to labor for you?
¹² Will you trust it to return your seed grain
and to bring it to your threshing floor?