Job 39

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

39 Do you know the time when the wild goats of the rock bring forth [their young]? [Or] do you observe when the hinds are giving birth? [Do you attend to all this, Job?]

² Can you number the months that they carry their offspring? Or do you know the time when they are delivered,

³ When they bow themselves, bring forth their young ones, [and] cast out their pains?

⁴ Their young ones become strong, they grow up in the open field; they go forth and return not to them.

⁵ Who has sent out the wild donkey, giving him his freedom? Or who has loosed the bands of the swift donkey [by which his tame brother is bound—he, the shy, the swift-footed, and the untamable],

⁶ Whose home I have made the wilderness, and the salt land his dwelling place?

⁷ He scorns the tumult of the city and hears not the shoutings of the taskmaster.

⁸ The range of the mountains is his pasture, and he searches after every green thing.

⁹ Will the wild ox be willing to serve you, or remain beside your manger?

¹⁰ Can you bind the wild ox with a harness to the plow in the furrow? Or will he harrow the furrows for you?

¹¹ Will you trust him because his strength is great, or to him will you leave your labor?

¹² Will you depend upon him to bring home your seed and gather the grain of your threshing floor? [Who, Job, was the author of this strange variance in the disposition of animals so alike in appearance? Was it you?]

¹³ The wings of the ostrich wave proudly, [but] are they the pinions and plumage of love?

¹⁴ The ostrich leaves her eggs on the ground and warms them in the dust,

¹⁵ Forgetting that a foot may crush them or that the wild beast may trample them.

¹⁶ She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not hers; her labor is in vain because she has no sense of danger [for her unborn brood],

¹⁷ For God has deprived her of wisdom, neither has He imparted to her understanding.

¹⁸ Yet when she lifts herself up in flight, [so swift is she that] she can laugh to scorn the horse and his rider.

¹⁹ Have you given the horse his might? Have you clothed his neck with quivering and a shaking mane?

²⁰ Was it you [Job] who made him to leap like a locust? The majesty of his [snorting] nostrils is terrible.

²¹ He paws in the valley and exults in his strength; he goes out to meet the weapons [of armed men].

²² He mocks at fear and is not dismayed or terrified; neither does he turn back [in battle] from the sword.

²³ The quiver rattles upon him, as do the glittering spear and the lance [of his rider].

²⁴ [He seems in running to] devour the ground with fierceness and rage; neither can he stand still at the sound of the [war] trumpet.

²⁵ As often as the trumpet sounds he says, Ha, ha! And he smells the battle from afar, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.

²⁶ Is it by your wisdom [Job] that the hawk soars and stretches her wings toward the south [as winter approaches]?

²⁷ Does the eagle mount up at your command and make his nest on [a] high [inaccessible place]?

²⁸ On the cliff he dwells and remains securely, upon the point of the rock and the stronghold.

²⁹ From there he spies out the prey; and his eyes see it afar off.

³⁰ His young ones suck up blood, and where the slain are, there is he.