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God Challenges Job

¹ Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:² “Who is this who obscures My counsel by words without knowledge?³ Now brace yourself^(a) like a man; I will question you, and you shall inform Me!

⁴ Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding.⁵ Who fixed its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched a measuring line across it?⁶ On what were its foundations laid, or who set its core in place—⁷ while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?⁸ Who enclosed the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb,⁹ when I made the clouds its garment and thick darkness its blanket,¹⁰ when I fixed its boundaries and set in place its bars and doors,¹¹ and I declared: ‘You may come this far, but no farther; here your proud waves must stop’?

¹² In your days, have you commanded the morning or assigned the dawn its place,¹³ that it might spread to the ends of the earth and shake the wicked out of it?¹⁴ The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its hills stand out like the folds of a garment.¹⁵ Light is withheld from the wicked, and their upraised arm is broken.¹⁶ Have you journeyed to the vents of the sea or walked in the trenches of the deep?¹⁷ Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Have you seen the gates of the shadow of death?¹⁸ Have you surveyed the extent of the earth? Tell Me, if you know all this.¹⁹ Where is the way to the home of light? Do you know where darkness resides,²⁰ so you can lead it back to its border? Do you know the paths to its home?²¹ Surely you know, for you were already born! And the number of your days is great!²² Have you entered the storehouses of snow or observed the storehouses of hail,²³ which I hold in reserve for times of trouble, for the day of war and battle?²⁴ In which direction is the lightning dispersed, or the east wind scattered over the earth?

²⁵ Who cuts a channel for the flood or clears a path for the thunderbolt,²⁶ to bring rain on a barren land, on a desert where no man lives,²⁷ to satisfy the parched wasteland and make it sprout with tender grass?²⁸ Does the rain have a father? Who has begotten the drops of dew?²⁹ From whose womb does the ice emerge? Who gave birth to the frost from heaven,³⁰ when the waters become hard as stone, and the surface of the deep is frozen?³¹ Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades or loosen the belt of Orion?³² Can you bring forth the constellations^(a) in their seasons or lead out the Bear^(a) and her cubs?³³ Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set their dominion over the earth?³⁴ Can you command the clouds so that a flood of water covers you?³⁵ Can you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?³⁶ Who has put wisdom in the heart^(a) or given understanding to the mind?³⁷ Who has the wisdom to count the clouds? Or who can tilt the water jars of the heavens³⁸ when the dust hardens into a mass and the clods of earth stick together?³⁹ Can you hunt the prey for a lioness or satisfy the hunger of young lions⁴⁰ when they crouch in their dens and lie in wait in the thicket?⁴¹ Who provides food for the raven when its young cry out to God as they wander about for lack of food?