The Lord Answers Job

38Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind:
²‘Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
³Gird up your loins like a man,
   I will question you, and you shall declare to me.

⁴‘Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
   Tell me, if you have understanding.
⁵Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
   Or who stretched the line upon it?
⁶On what were its bases sunk,
   or who laid its cornerstone
⁷when the morning stars sang together
   and all the heavenly beings^* shouted for joy?

⁸‘Or who shut in the sea with doors
   when it burst out from the womb?—
⁹when I made the clouds its garment,
   and thick darkness its swaddling band,
¹⁰and prescribed bounds for it,
   and set bars and doors,
¹¹and said, “Thus far shall you come, and no farther,
   and here shall your proud waves be stopped”?

¹²‘Have you commanded the morning since your days began,
   and caused the dawn to know its place,
¹³so that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth,
   and the wicked be shaken out of it?
¹⁴It is changed like clay under the seal,
   and it is dyed^* like a garment.
¹⁵Light is withheld from the wicked,
   and their uplifted arm is broken.

¹⁶‘Have you entered into the springs of the sea,
   or walked in the recesses of the deep?
¹⁷Have the gates of death been revealed to you,
   or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?