² Who is this darkening counsel
    with words lacking knowledge?
³ Prepare yourself like a man;
    I will interrogate you, and you will respond to me.

⁴ Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations?
    Tell me if you know.
⁵ Who set its measurements? Surely you know.
    Who stretched a measuring tape on it?
⁶ On what were its footings sunk;
    who laid its cornerstone,
⁷     while the morning stars sang in unison
        and all the divine beings shouted?
⁸ Who enclosed the Sea behind doors
    when it burst forth from the womb,
⁹     when I made the clouds its garment,
        the dense clouds its wrap,
¹⁰     when I imposed my limit for it,
        put on a bar and doors
¹¹     and said, “You may come this far, no farther;
        here your proud waves stop”?

¹⁶ Have you gone to the sea’s sources,
    walked in the chamber of the deep?
¹⁷ Have death’s gates been revealed to you;
    can you see the gates of deep darkness?
¹⁸ Have you surveyed earth’s expanses?
    Tell me if you know everything about it.
¹⁹ Where’s the road to the place where light dwells;
        darkness, where’s it located?
²⁰     Can you take it to its territory;
        do you know the paths to its house?
²¹ You know, for you were born then;
    you have lived such a long time!
²² Have you gone to snow’s storehouses,
        seen the storehouses of hail
²³     that I have reserved for a time of distress,
        for a day of battle and war?
²⁴ What is the way to the place where light is divided up;
        the east wind scattered over earth?

²⁵ Who cut a channel for the downpours
        and a way for blasts of thunder
²⁶     to bring water to uninhabited land,
        a desert with no human
²⁷     to saturate dry wasteland
        and make grass sprout?
²⁸ Has the rain a father
    who brought forth drops of dew?
²⁹ From whose belly does ice come;
    who gave birth to heaven’s frost?
³⁰ Water hardens like stone;
    the surface of the deep thickens.
³¹ Can you bind Pleiades’ chains
    or loosen the reins of Orion?
³² Can you guide the stars
at their proper times,
    lead the Bear with her cubs?
³³ Do you know heaven’s laws,
    or can you impose its rule on earth?
³⁴ Can you issue an order to the clouds
    so their abundant waters cover you?
³⁵ Can you send lightning so that it goes
    and then says to you, “I’m here”?
³⁶ Who put wisdom in remote places,
    or who gave understanding to a rooster?
³⁷ Who is wise enough to count the clouds,
        and who can tilt heaven’s water containers
³⁸     so that dust becomes mud
        and clods of dirt adhere?

³⁹ Can you hunt prey for the lion
    or fill the cravings of lion cubs?
⁴⁰ They lie in their den,
    lie in ambush in their lair.
⁴¹ Who provides food for the raven
    when its young cry to God,
    move about without food?