Job 41

41“Can you catch Leviathan ⁿ on a fish hook

or tie its tongue down with a rope?

²Can you put a cord through its nose

or a hook in its jaw?

³Will it keep begging you for mercy

and speak to you with gentle words?

⁴Will it make an agreement with you

and let you take it as your slave for life?

⁵Can you make a pet of Leviathan as you would a bird

or put it on a leash for your girls?

⁶Will traders try to bargain with you for it?

Will they divide it up among the merchants?

⁷Can you stick darts all over its skin

or fill its head with fishing spears?

⁸If you put one hand on it,

you will never forget the battle,

and you will never do it again!

⁹There is no hope of defeating it;

just seeing it overwhelms people.

¹⁰No one is brave enough to make it angry,

so who would be able to stand up against me?

¹¹No one has ever given me anything that I must pay back,

because everything under the sky belongs to me.

¹²“I will speak about Leviathan’s arms and legs,

its great strength and well-formed body.

¹³No one can tear off its outer hide

or poke through its double armor.

¹⁴No one can force open its great jaws;

they are filled with frightening teeth.

¹⁵It has rows of shields on its back

that are tightly sealed together.

¹⁶Each shield is so close to the next one

that no air can go between them.

¹⁷They are joined strongly to one another;

they hold on to each other and cannot be separated.

¹⁸When it snorts, flashes of light are thrown out,

and its eyes look like the light at dawn.

¹⁹Flames blaze from its mouth;

sparks of fire shoot out.

²⁰Smoke pours out of its nose,

as if coming from a large pot over a hot fire.

²¹Its breath sets coals on fire,

and flames come out of its mouth.

²²There is great strength in its neck.

People are afraid and run away.

²³The folds of its skin are tightly joined;

they are set and cannot be moved.

²⁴Its chest is as hard as a rock,

even as hard as a grinding stone.

²⁵The powerful fear its terrible looks

and draw back in fear as it moves.

²⁶The sword that hits it does not hurt it,

nor the arrows, darts, and spears.

²⁷It treats iron as if it were straw

and bronze metal as if it were rotten wood.

²⁸It does not run away from arrows;

stones from slings are like chaff to it.

²⁹Clubs feel like pieces of straw to it,

and it laughs when they shake a spear at it.

³⁰The underside of its body is like broken pieces of pottery.

It leaves a trail in the mud like a threshing board.

³¹It makes the deep sea bubble like a boiling pot;

it stirs up the sea like a pot of oil.

³²When it swims, it leaves a shining path in the water

that makes the sea look as if it had white hair.

³³Nothing else on earth is equal to it;

it is a creature without fear.

³⁴It looks down on all those who are too proud;

it is king over all proud creatures.”