Job 38:1-15

VI. The Divine Speeches (38:1-42:6)

The Lord’s First Speech

38:1 Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind:

38:2 “Who is this who darkens counsel

with words without knowledge?

38:3 Get ready for a difficult task like a man;

I will question you

and you will inform me!

God’s questions to Job

38:4 “Where were you

when I laid the foundation of the earth?

Tell me, if you possess understanding!

38:5 Who set its measurements – if you know –

or who stretched a measuring line across it?

38:6 On what were its bases set,

or who laid its cornerstone –

38:7 when the morning stars sang in chorus,

and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

38:8 “Who shut up the sea with doors

when it burst forth, coming out of the womb,

38:9 when I made the storm clouds its garment,

and thick darkness its swaddling band,

38:10 when I prescribed its limits,

and set in place its bolts and doors,

38:11 when I said, ‘To here you may come

and no farther,

here your proud waves will be confined’?

38:12 Have you ever in your life commanded the morning,

or made the dawn know its place,

38:13 that it might seize the corners of the earth,

and shake the wicked out of it?

38:14 The earth takes shape like clay under a seal;

its features are dyed like a garment.

38:15 Then from the wicked the light is withheld,

and the arm raised in violence is broken.