Job 38:1-18

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

² “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?^(B)
3 Gird up your loins like a man;
    I will question you, and you shall declare to me.^(C)

⁴ “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
    Tell me, if you have understanding.^(D)
5 Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
    Or who stretched the line upon it?
⁶ On what were its bases sunk,
    or who laid its cornerstone^(E)
7 when the morning stars sang together
    and all the heavenly beings^[a] shouted for joy?^(F)

⁸ “Or who shut in the sea with doors
    when it burst out from the womb,^(G)
9 when I made the clouds its garment
    and thick darkness its swaddling band,^(H)
10 and prescribed bounds for it,
    and set bars and doors,^(I)
11 and said, ‘Thus far shall you come and no farther,
    and here shall your proud waves be stopped’?^(J)

¹² “Have you commanded the morning since your days began
    and caused the dawn to know its place,^(K)
13 so that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth,
    and the wicked be shaken out of it?^(L)
14 It is changed like clay under the seal,
    and it is dyed^[b] like a garment.
¹⁵ Light is withheld from the wicked,
    and their uplifted arm is broken.^(M)

¹⁶ “Have you entered into the springs of the sea
    or walked in the recesses of the deep?^(N)
17 Have the gates of death been revealed to you,
    or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?^(O)
18 Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth?
    Declare, if you know all this.^(P)