Job 38

Then the LORD answered Job from the whirlwind and said, “Who is this who darkens counsel with words without knowledge? Gird your loins like a man;
I will question you, and you must instruct me. Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?
Tell me, if you have understanding. Who set its measurements?
Surely you know!
Or who stretched a line over it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb, when I made clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling cloth, when I marked out my boundary for it and set a bar and doors, and said, ‘Thus far you may come, but no farther;
here your proud waves must stop’? Have you ever in your days commanded the morning or made the dawn know its place, so it could grasp the ends of the earth and shake the wicked out of it? The earth changes like clay under a seal, and its features stand out like a garment. The wicked are denied their light, and the uplifted arm is broken. Have you entered the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been revealed to you?
Have you seen the gates of deep gloom? Have you comprehended the breadth of the earth?
Tell me, if you know it all. Where is the way to the dwelling of light?
And darkness—where is its place, that you may take it to its territory and know the paths to its house? You know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great! Have you entered the storehouses of snow or seen the storehouses of hail, which I have reserved for a time of distress, for a day of battle and war? What is the way by which light is divided and the east wind is scattered over the earth? Who has cut a channel for the downpour and a path for the thunderbolt, to bring rain on a land without a man, on a wilderness with no one in it, to satisfy the waste and desolate ground and make grass sprout? Has the rain a father?
Who has begotten the drops of dew? From whose womb did the ice come?
Who gave birth to the frost of heaven? The waters are hidden as beneath stone, and the surface of the deep is bound fast. Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades or loosen the cords of Orion? Can you bring out Mazzaroth in its season, or guide the Bear with her children? Do you know the ordinances of the heavens?
Can you establish their rule on the earth? Can you lift your voice to the clouds, so that a flood of water covers you? Can you send out lightning bolts, so they go and say to you, ‘Here we are’? Who has put wisdom in the inward parts, or given understanding to the mind? Who can count the clouds in wisdom?
Who can tip the wineskins of heaven, when the dust is poured into a solid mass and the clods stick together? Can you hunt prey for the lioness and satisfy the appetite of young lions, when they crouch in their dens and lie in cover, waiting in ambush? Who provides food for the raven when its young cry to God and wander for lack of food?

Rights and attribution