1: Have you knowledge of the rock-goats? or do you see the roes giving birth to their young? 2: Is the number of their months fixed by you? or is the time when they give birth ordered by you? 3: They are bent down, they give birth to their young, they let loose the fruit of their body. 4: Their young ones are strong, living in the open country; they go out and do not come back again. 5: Who has let the ass of the fields go free? or made loose the bands of the loud-voiced beast? 6: To whom I have given the waste land for a heritage, and the salt land as a living-place. 7: He makes sport of the noise of the town; the voice of the driver does not come to his ears; 8: He goes looking for his grass-lands in the mountains, searching out every green thing. 9: Will the ox of the mountains be your servant? or is his night's resting-place by your food-store? 10: Will he be pulling your plough with cords, turning up the valleys after you? 11: Will you put your faith in him, because his strength is great? will you give the fruit of your work into his care? 12: Will you be looking for him to come back, and get in your seed to the crushing-floor? 13: Is the wing of the ostrich feeble, or is it because she has no feathers, 14: That she puts her eggs on the earth, warming them in the dust, 15: Without a thought that they may be crushed by the foot, and broken by the beasts of the field? 16: She is cruel to her young ones, as if they were not hers; her work is to no purpose; she has no fear. 17: For God has taken wisdom from her mind, and given her no measure of knowledge. 18: When she is shaking her wings on high, she makes sport of the horse and of him who is seated on him. 19: Do you give strength to the horse? is it by your hand that his neck is clothed with power? 20: Is it through you that he is shaking like a locust, in the pride of his loud-sounding breath? 21: He is stamping with joy in the valley; he makes sport of fear. 22: In his strength he goes out against the arms of war, turning not away from the sword. 23: The bow is sounding against him; he sees the shining point of spear and arrow. 24: Shaking with passion, he is biting the earth; he is not able to keep quiet at the sound of the horn; 25: When it comes to his ears he says, Aha! He is smelling the fight from far off, and hearing the thunder of the captains, and the war-cries. 26: Is it through your knowledge that the hawk takes his flight, stretching out his wings to the south? 27: Or is it by your orders that the eagle goes up, and makes his resting-place on high? 28: On the rock is his house, and on the mountain-top his strong place. 29: From there he is watching for food; his eye sees it far off. 30: His young have blood for their drink, and where the dead bodies are, there is he to be seen.
