THE LORD SPEAKS

38 Then the Lord answered Job from the whirlwind.n He said:

2 Who is this who obscures my counsel

with ignorant words?o

3 Get ready to answer me like a man;

when I questionp you, you will inform me.

4 Where were you when I establishedq the earth?

Tell me, if you haveA understanding.

5 Who fixed its dimensions? Certainly you know!

Who stretched a measuring line across it?

6 What supports its foundations?

Or who laid its cornerstone

7 while the morning stars sang together

and all the sons of Goda shouted for joy?

8 Who enclosed the sea behind doors

when it burst from the womb,

9 when I made the clouds its garment

and total darkness its blanket,B,b

10 when I determined its boundariesC

and put its bars and doors in place,

11 when I declared, “You may come this far, but no farther;

your proud waves stop here”?

12 Have you ever in your life commanded the morning

or assigned the dawn its place,

13 so it may seize the edges of the earth

and shake the wicked out of it?

14 The earth is changed as clay is by a seal;

its hills stand out like the folds of a garment.

15 LightD is withheld from the wicked,

and the arm raised in violence is broken.

16 Have you traveled to the sources of the sea

or walked in the depths of the oceans?

17 Have the gatesc of death been revealed to you?

Have you seen the gates of deep darkness?

18 Have you comprehended the extent of the earth?

Tell me, if you know all this.

19 Where is the road to the home of light?

Do you know where darkness lives,

20 so you can lead it back to its border?

Are you familiar with the paths to its home?

21 Don’t you know? You were already born;d

you have lived so long!E