📖 Job 38
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VI. The Divine Speeches(38:1-42:6)The Lord’s First Speech Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind:
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“Who is this who darkens counsel with words without knowledge?
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Get ready for a difficult task like a man; I will question you and you will inform me!
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God’s questions to Job“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you possess understanding!
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Who set its measurements– if you know– or who stretched a measuring line across it?
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On what were its bases set, or who laid its cornerstone–
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when the morning stars sang in chorus, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
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“Who shut up the sea with doors when it burst forth, coming out of the womb,
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when I made the storm clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band,
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when I prescribed its limits, and set in place its bolts and doors,
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when I said,‘To here you may come and no farther, here your proud waves will be confined’?
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Have you ever in your life commanded the morning, or made the dawn know its place,
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that it might seize the corners of the earth, and shake the wicked out of it?
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The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its features are dyed like a garment.
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Then from the wicked the light is withheld, and the arm raised in violence is broken.
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Have you gone to the springs that fill the sea, or walked about in the recesses of the deep?
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Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Have you seen the gates of deepest darkness?
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Have you considered the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me, if you know it all!
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“In what direction does light reside, and darkness, where is its place,
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that you may take them to their borders and perceive the pathways to their homes?
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You know, for you were born before them; and the number of your days is great!
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Have you entered the storehouse of the snow, or seen the armory of the hail,
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which I reserve for the time of trouble, for the day of war and battle?
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In what direction is lightning dispersed, or the east winds scattered over the earth?
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Who carves out a channel for the heavy rains, and a path for the rumble of thunder,
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to cause it to rain on an uninhabited land, a wilderness where there are no human beings,
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to satisfy a devastated and desolate land, and to cause it to sprout with vegetation?
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Does the rain have a father, or who has fathered the drops of the dew?
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From whose womb does the ice emerge, and the frost from the sky, who gives birth to it,
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when the waters become hard like stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen solid?
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Can you tie the bands of the Pleiades, or release the cords of Orion?
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Can you lead out the constellations in their seasons, or guide the Bear with its cubs?
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Do you know the laws of the heavens, or can you set up their rule over the earth?
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Can you raise your voice to the clouds so that a flood of water covers you?
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Can you send out lightning bolts, and they go? Will they say to you,‘Here we are’?
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Who has put wisdom in the heart, or has imparted understanding to the mind?
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Who by wisdom can count the clouds, and who can tip over the water jars of heaven,
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when the dust hardens into a mass, and the clumps of earth stick together?
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“Do you hunt prey for the lioness, and satisfy the appetite of the lions,
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when they crouch in their dens, when they wait in ambush in the thicket?
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Who prepares prey for the raven, when its young cry out to God and wander about for lack of food?