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The Lord Answers Job

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

⁵ ‘Who has let the wild ass go free?
   Who has loosed the bonds of the swift ass,
⁶ to which I have given the steppe for its home,
   the salt land for its dwelling-place?
⁷ It scorns the tumult of the city;
   it does not hear the shouts of the driver.
⁸ It ranges the mountains as its pasture,
   and it searches after every green thing.

¹³ ‘The ostrich’s wings flap wildly,
   though its pinions lack plumage.^*
14 For it leaves its eggs to the earth,
   and lets them be warmed on the ground,
¹⁵ forgetting that a foot may crush them,
   and that a wild animal may trample them.
¹⁶ It deals cruelly with its young, as if they were not its own;
   though its labour should be in vain, yet it has no fear;
¹⁷ because God has made it forget wisdom,
   and given it no share in understanding.
¹⁸ When it spreads its plumes aloft,^*
   it laughs at the horse and its rider.