Job Chapter 38 / BBE

The Bible in Basic English
Job, Chapter 38

   1: And the Lord made answer to Job out of the storm-wind, and said,
   2: Who is this who makes the purpose of God dark by words without knowledge?
   3: Get your strength together like a man of war; I will put questions to you, and you will give me the answers.
   4: Where were you when I put the earth on its base? Say, if you have knowledge.
   5: By whom were its measures fixed? Say, if you have wisdom; or by whom was the line stretched out over it?
   6: On what were its pillars based, or who put down its angle-stone,
   7: When the morning stars made songs together, and all the sons of the gods gave cries of joy?
   8: Or where were you when the sea came to birth, pushing out from its secret place;
   9: When I made the cloud its robe, and put thick clouds as bands round it,
   10: Ordering a fixed limit for it, with locks and doors;
   11: And said, So far you may come, and no farther; and here the pride of your waves will be stopped?
   12: Have you, from your earliest days, given orders to the morning, or made the dawn conscious of its place;
   13: So that it might take a grip of the skirts of the earth, shaking all the evil-doers out of it?
   14: It is changed like wet earth under a stamp, and is coloured like a robe;
   15: And from the evil-doers their light is kept back, and the arm of pride is broken.
   16: Have you come into the springs of the sea, walking in the secret places of the deep?
   17: Have the doors of death been open to you, or have the door-keepers of the dark ever seen you?
   18: Have you taken note of the wide limits of the earth? Say, if you have knowledge of it all.
   19: Which is the way to the resting-place of the light, and where is the store-house of the dark;
   20: So that you might take it to its limit, guiding it to its house?
   21: No doubt you have knowledge of it, for then you had come to birth, and the number of your days is great.
   22: Have you come into the secret place of snow, or have you seen the store-houses of the ice-drops,
   23: Which I have kept for the time of trouble, for the day of war and fighting?
   24: Which is the way to the place where the wind is measured out, and the east wind sent out over the earth?
   25: By whom has the way been cut for the flowing of the rain, and the flaming of the thunder;
   26: Causing rain to come on a land where no man is living, on the waste land which has no people;
   27: To give water to the land where there is waste and destruction, and to make the dry land green with young grass?
   28: Has the rain a father? or who gave birth to the drops of night mist?
   29: Out of whose body came the ice? and who gave birth to the cold mist of heaven?
   30: The waters are joined together, hard as a stone, and the face of the deep is covered.
   31: Are the bands of the Pleiades fixed by you, or are the cords of Orion made loose?
   32: Do you make Mazzaroth come out in its right time, or are the Bear and its children guided by you?
   33: Have you knowledge of the laws of the heavens? did you give them rule over the earth?
   34: Is your voice sent up to the cloud, so that you may be covered by the weight of waters?
   35: Do you send out the thunder-flames, so that they may go, and say to you, Here we are?
   36: Who has put wisdom in the high clouds, or given knowledge to the lights of the north?
   37: By whose wisdom are the clouds numbered, or the water-skins of the heavens turned to the earth,
   38: When the earth becomes hard as metal, and is joined together in masses?
   39: Do you go after food for the she-lion, or get meat so that the young lions may have enough,
   40: When they are stretched out in their holes, and are waiting in the brushwood?
   41: Who gives in the evening the meat he is searching for, when his young ones are crying to God; when the young lions with loud noise go wandering after their food?

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