Job 39 AMPC

1. DO YOU know the time when the wild goats of the rock bring forth [their young]? [Or] do you observe when the hinds are giving birth? [Do you attend to all this, Job?]

2. Can you number the months that they carry their offspring? Or do you know the time when they are delivered,

3. When they bow themselves, bring forth their young ones, [and] cast out their pains?

4. Their young ones become strong, they grow up in the open field; they go forth and return not to them.

5. Who has sent out the wild donkey, giving him his freedom? Or who has loosed the bands of the swift donkey [by which his tame brother is bound–he, the shy, the swift-footed, and the untamable],

6. Whose home I have made the wilderness, and the salt land his dwelling place?

7. He scorns the tumult of the city and hears not the shoutings of the taskmaster.

8. The range of the mountains is his pasture, and he searches after every green thing.

9. Will the wild ox be willing to serve you, or remain beside your manger?

10. Can you bind the wild ox with a harness to the plow in the furrow? Or will he harrow the furrows for you?

11. Will you trust him because his strength is great, or to him will you leave your labor?

12. Will you depend upon him to bring home your seed and gather the grain of your threshing floor? [Who, Job, was the author of this strange variance in the disposition of animals so alike in appearance? Was it you?]

13. The wings of the ostrich wave proudly, [but] are they the pinions and plumage of love?

14. The ostrich leaves her eggs on the ground and warms them in the dust,

15. Forgetting that a foot may crush them or that the wild beast may trample them.

16. She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not hers; her labor is in vain because she has no sense of danger [for her unborn brood],

17. For God has deprived her of wisdom, neither has He imparted to her understanding.

18. Yet when she lifts herself up in flight, [so swift is she that] she can laugh to scorn the horse and his rider.

19. Have you given the horse his might? Have you clothed his neck with quivering and a shaking mane?

20. Was it you [Job] who made him to leap like a locust? The majesty of his [snorting] nostrils is terrible.

21. He paws in the valley and exults in his strength; he goes out to meet the weapons [of armed men].

22. He mocks at fear and is not dismayed or terrified; neither does he turn back [in battle] from the sword.

23. The quiver rattles upon him, as do the glittering spear and the lance [of his rider].

24. [He seems in running to] devour the ground with fierceness and rage; neither can he stand still at the sound of the [war] trumpet.

25. As often as the trumpet sounds he says, Ha, ha! And he smells the battle from afar, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.

26. Is it by your wisdom [Job] that the hawk soars and stretches her wings toward the south [as winter approaches]?

27. Does the eagle mount up at your command and make his nest on [a] high [inaccessible place]?

28. On the cliff he dwells and remains securely, upon the point of the rock and the stronghold.

29. From there he spies out the prey; and his eyes see it afar off.

30. His young ones suck up blood, and where the slain are, there is he.