Job 39

39“Job, do you know when mountain goats have their babies?

Do you watch when female deer give birth?

²Do you count the months until the animals have their babies?

Do you know the time when they give birth?

³They bend their back legs and have their babies.

Then their labor pains stop.

⁴Their little ones grow strong and healthy in the wild.

They leave and do not come home again.

⁵“Who let the wild donkeys go free?

Who untied their ropes?

⁶I gave them the dry and empty land as their home.

I gave them salt flats to live in.

⁷They laugh at all of the noise in town.

They do not hear the shouts of the donkey drivers.

⁸They wander over the hills to look for grass.

They search for anything green to eat.

⁹“Job, will wild oxen agree to serve you?

Will they stay by your feed box at night?

¹⁰Can you keep them in straight rows with harnesses?

Will they plow the valleys behind you?

¹¹Will you depend on them for their great strength?

Will you let them do your heavy work?

¹²Can you trust them to bring in your grain?

Will they take it to your threshing floor?

¹³“The wings of ostriches flap with joy.

But they can’t compare with the wings and feathers of storks.

¹⁴Ostriches lay their eggs on the ground.

They let them get warm in the sand.

¹⁵They do not know that something might step on them.

A wild animal might walk all over them.

¹⁶Ostriches are mean to their little ones.

They treat them as if they did not belong to them.

They do not care that their work was useless.

¹⁷I did not provide ostriches with wisdom.

I did not give them good sense.

¹⁸But when they spread their feathers to run,

they laugh at a horse and its rider.

¹⁹“Job, do you give horses their strength?

Do you put flowing manes on their necks?

²⁰Do you make them jump like locusts?

They terrify others with their proud snorting.

²¹They paw the ground wildly.

They are filled with joy.

They charge at their enemies.

²²They laugh at fear. They are not afraid of anything.

They do not run away from swords.

²³Many arrows rattle at their sides.

Flashing spears and javelins are also there.

²⁴They are so stirred up that they eat up the ground.

They can’t stand still when trumpets are blown.

²⁵When they hear the trumpets they snort, ‘Aha!’

They catch the smells of battle far away.

They hear the shouts of commanders and the battle cries.

²⁶“Job, are you wise enough to teach hawks where to fly?

They spread their wings and fly toward the south.

²⁷Do you command eagles to fly so high?

They build their nests as high as they can.

²⁸They live on cliffs and stay there at night.

High up on the rocks they think they are safe.

²⁹From there they look for their food.

They can see it from far away.

³⁰Their little ones like to eat blood.

Eagles gather where they see dead bodies.”