Job (The Book of )

Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind:

"Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?

Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me.

"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.

Who determined its measurements--surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it?

On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone

when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?

"Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb?--

when I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band,

and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors,

and said, 'Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped'?

"Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place,

so that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it?

It is changed like clay under the seal, and it is dyed like a garment.

Light is withheld from the wicked, and their uplifted arm is broken.

"Have you entered into the springs of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep?

Have the gates of death been revealed to you, or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?

Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth? Declare, if you know all this.

"Where is the way to the dwelling of light, and where is the place of darkness,

that you may take it to its territory and that you may discern the paths to its home?

Surely you know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great!

"Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail,