Chapter text
World English Bible
Verse-by-verse text with stable anchors, canonical chapter URLs, and copyable verse links.
- 1 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind,
- 2 “Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
- 3 Brace yourself like a man, for I will question you, then you answer me!
- 4 “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if you have understanding.
- 5 Who determined its measures, if you know? Or who stretched the line on it?
- 6 What were its foundations fastened on? Or who laid its cornerstone,
- 7 when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
- 8 “Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it broke out of the womb,
- 9 when I made clouds its garment, and wrapped it in thick darkness,
- 10 marked out for it my bound, set bars and doors,
- 11 and said, ‘You may come here, but no further. Your proud waves shall be stopped here’?
- 12 “Have you commanded the morning in your days, and caused the dawn to know its place,
- 13 that it might take hold of the ends of the earth, and shake the wicked out of it?
- 14 It is changed as clay under the seal, and presented as a garment.
- 15 From the wicked, their light is withheld. The high arm is broken.
- 16 “Have you entered into the springs of the sea? Or have you walked in the recesses of the deep?
- 17 Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Or have you seen the gates of the shadow of death?
- 18 Have you comprehended the earth in its width? Declare, if you know it all.
- 19 “What is the way to the dwelling of light? As for darkness, where is its place,
- 20 that you should take it to its bound, that you should discern the paths to its house?
- 21 Surely you know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great!
- 22 Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail,
- 23 which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war?
- 24 By what way is the lightning distributed, or the east wind scattered on the earth?
- 25 Who has cut a channel for the flood water, or the path for the thunderstorm,
- 26 to cause it to rain on a land where there is no man, on the wilderness, in which there is no man,
- 27 to satisfy the waste and desolate ground, to cause the tender grass to grow?
- 28 Does the rain have a father? Or who fathers the drops of dew?
- 29 Whose womb did the ice come out of? Who has given birth to the gray frost of the sky?
- 30 The waters become hard like stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen.
- 31 “Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades, or loosen the cords of Orion?
- 32 Can you lead the constellations out in their season? Or can you guide the Bear with her cubs?
- 33 Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you establish its dominion over the earth?
- 34 “Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may cover you?
- 35 Can you send out lightnings, that they may go? Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?
- 36 Who has put wisdom in the inward parts? Or who has given understanding to the mind?
- 37 Who can count the clouds by wisdom? Or who can pour out the containers of the sky,
- 38 when the dust runs into a mass, and the clods of earth stick together?
- 39 “Can you hunt the prey for the lioness, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions,
- 40 when they crouch in their dens, and lie in wait in the thicket?
- 41 Who provides for the raven his prey, when his young ones cry to God, and wander for lack of food?