[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 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 set, or who laid its cornerstone,
[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 gives 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 in their seasons or lead out the Bear 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 or given understanding to the mind?
[37] Who has the wisdom to count the clouds? Or who can tilt the water jars of the heavens
[38] 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 lions
[40] 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?