4
“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
5
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
6
On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
7
while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?
8
“Who shut up the sea behind doors
when it burst forth from the womb,
9
when I made the clouds its garment
and wrapped it in thick darkness,
10
when I fixed limits for it
and set its doors and bars in place,
11
when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
here is where your proud waves halt’?
12
“Have you ever given orders to the morning,
or shown the dawn its place,
13
that it might take the earth by the edges
and shake the wicked out of it?
14
The earth takes shape like clay under a seal;
its features stand out like those of a garment.
15
The wicked are denied their light,
and their upraised arm is broken.
16
“Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea
or walked in the recesses of the deep?
17
Have the gates of death been shown to you?
Have you seen the gates of the shadow of death?
18
Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth?
Tell me, if you know all this.
19
“What is the way to the abode of light?
And where does darkness reside?
20
Can you take them to their places?
Do you know the paths to their dwellings?
21
Surely you know, for you were already born!
You have lived so many years!
22
“Have you entered the storehouses of the snow
or seen the storehouses of the hail,
23
which I reserve for times of trouble,
for days of war and battle?
24
What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed,
or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?
25
Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain,
and a path for the thunderstorm,
26
to water a land where no man lives,
a desert with no one in it,
27
to satisfy a desolate wasteland
and make it sprout with grass?
28
Does the rain have a father?
Who fathers the drops of dew?
29
From whose womb comes the ice?
Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens
30
when the waters become hard as stone,
when the surface of the deep is frozen?