| 38:1 | And the Lord made answer to Job out of the storm-wind, and said, |
| 38:2 | Who is this who makes the purpose of God dark by words without knowledge? |
| 38:3 | Get your strength together like a man of war; I will put questions to you, and you will give me the answers. |
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| 38:4 | Where were you when I put the earth on its base? Say, if you have knowledge. |
| 38:5 | By whom were its measures fixed? Say, if you have wisdom; or by whom was the line stretched out over it? |
| 38:6 | On what were its pillars based, or who put down its angle-stone, |
| 38:7 | When the morning stars made songs together, and all the sons of the gods gave cries of joy? |
| 38:8 | Or where were you when the sea came to birth, pushing out from its secret place; |
| 38:9 | When I made the cloud its robe, and put thick clouds as bands round it, |
| 38:10 | Ordering a fixed limit for it, with locks and doors; |
| 38:11 | And said, So far you may come, and no farther; and here the pride of your waves will be stopped? |
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| 38:12 | Have you, from your earliest days, given orders to the morning, or made the dawn conscious of its place; |
| 38:13 | So that it might take a grip of the skirts of the earth, shaking all the evil-doers out of it? |
| 38:14 | It is changed like wet earth under a stamp, and is coloured like a robe; |
| 38:15 | And from the evil-doers their light is kept back, and the arm of pride is broken. |
| 38:16 | Have you come into the springs of the sea, walking in the secret places of the deep? |
| 38:17 | Have the doors of death been open to you, or have the door-keepers of the dark ever seen you? |
| 38:18 | Have you taken note of the wide limits of the earth? Say, if you have knowledge of it all. |
| 38:19 | Which is the way to the resting-place of the light, and where is the store-house of the dark; |
| 38:20 | So that you might take it to its limit, guiding it to its house? |
| 38:21 | No doubt you have knowledge of it, for then you had come to birth, and the number of your days is great. |
| 38:22 | Have you come into the secret place of snow, or have you seen the store-houses of the ice-drops, |
| 38:23 | Which I have kept for the time of trouble, for the day of war and fighting? |
| 38:24 | Which is the way to the place where the wind is measured out, and the east wind sent out over the earth? |
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| 38:25 | By whom has the way been cut for the flowing of the rain, and the flaming of the thunder; |
| 38:26 | Causing rain to come on a land where no man is living, on the waste land which has no people; |
| 38:27 | To give water to the land where there is waste and destruction, and to make the dry land green with young grass? |
| 38:28 | Has the rain a father? or who gave birth to the drops of night mist? |
| 38:29 | Out of whose body came the ice? and who gave birth to the cold mist of heaven? |
| 38:30 | The waters are joined together, hard as a stone, and the face of the deep is covered. |
| 38:31 | Are the bands of the Pleiades fixed by you, or are the cords of Orion made loose? |
| 38:32 | Do you make Mazzaroth come out in its right time, or are the Bear and its children guided by you? |
| 38:33 | Have you knowledge of the laws of the heavens? did you give them rule over the earth? |
| 38:34 | Is your voice sent up to the cloud, so that you may be covered by the weight of waters? |
| 38:35 | Do you send out the thunder-flames, so that they may go, and say to you, Here we are? |
| 38:36 | Who has put wisdom in the high clouds, or given knowledge to the lights of the north? |
| 38:37 | By whose wisdom are the clouds numbered, or the water-skins of the heavens turned to the earth, |
| 38:38 | When the earth becomes hard as metal, and is joined together in masses? |
| 38:39 | Do you go after food for the she-lion, or get meat so that the young lions may have enough, |
| 38:40 | When they are stretched out in their holes, and are waiting in the brushwood? |
| 38:41 | Who gives in the evening the meat he is searching for, when his young ones are crying to God; when the young lions with loud noise go wandering after their food? |
Ayub 38 - Bible in Basic English
