Job 39

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“Do you know the time the mountain goats give birth?

Do you keep watch over the calving of the deer?

Can you count the months they fulfill,

Or do you know the time they give birth?

They kneel down; they bring forth their young;

They send out their labor pains.

Their children become strong; they grow up in the open field;

They leave and do not return to them.

“Who sent out the wild donkey free?

And who loosed the bonds of the swift donkey,

For whom I have set the desert plain as a home

And the salt land as his dwelling place?

He laughs at the tumult of the city;

The shoutings of the driver he does not hear.

He explores the mountains for his pasture

And searches after every green thing.

Will the wild ox consent to serve you,

Or will he spend the night at your manger?

Can you bind the wild ox in a furrow with ropes,

Or will he harrow the valleys after you?

Will you trust him because his power is great

And leave your labor to him?

Will you believe him that he will return your seed of grain

And gather it from your threshing floor?

“The ostriches’ wings flap joyously

But are they the pinion and plumage of a stork?

For she leaves her eggs to the earth

And warms them in the dust,

And she forgets that a foot may crush them,

Or that a beast of the field may trample them.

She treats her children cruelly, as if they were not hers;

Though her labor be empty, she is without dread,

Because God has made her forget wisdom,

And has not given her a share of understanding.

When she raises herself up high,

She laughs at the horse and his rider.

“Do you give the horse his might?

Do you clothe his neck with a mane?

Do you make him leap like the locust?

His splendid snorting is terrible.

He paws in the valley and rejoices in his power;

He goes out to meet the weapons.

He laughs at dread and is not dismayed;

And he does not turn back from the sword.

The quiver rattles against him,

The flashing spear and javelin.

With shaking and rage he races over the ground,

And he does not stand still at the sound of the trumpet.

As often as the trumpet sounds he says, ‘Aha!’

And he scents the battle from afar,

And the thunder of the commanders and the shout of war.

“Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars,

Stretching his wings toward the south?

Is it at your command that the eagle goes on high

And raises his nest high?

On the cliff he dwells and lodges,

Upon the rocky crag, a fortress.

From there he spies out food;

His eyes see it from afar.

His young ones also suck up blood;

And where the slain are, there is he.”

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