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Job 41
1 Can you pull in Leviathan with a fishhook or tie down its tongue with a rope?
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| 2 Can you put a cord through its nose or pierce its jaw with a hook? |
| 3 Will it keep begging you for mercy? Will it speak to you with gentle words? |
| 4 Will it make an agreement with you for you to take it as your slave for life? |
| 5 Can you make a pet of it like a bird or put it on a leash for the young women in your house? |
| 6 Will traders barter for it? Will they divide it up among the merchants? |
| 7 Can you fill its hide with harpoons or its head with fishing spears? |
| 8 If you lay a hand on it, you will remember the struggle and never do it again! |
| 9 Any hope of subduing it is false; the mere sight of it is overpowering. |
| 10 No one is fierce enough to rouse it. Who then is able to stand against me? |
| 11 Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me. |
| 12 “I will not fail to speak of Leviathan’s limbs, its strength and its graceful form. |
| 13 Who can strip off its outer coat? Who can penetrate its double coat of armorfn? |
| 14 Who dares open the doors of its mouth, ringed about with fearsome teeth? |
| 15 Its back hasfn rows of shields tightly sealed together; |
| 16 each is so close to the next that no air can pass between. |
| 17 They are joined fast to one another; they cling together and cannot be parted. |
| 18 Its snorting throws out flashes of light; its eyes are like the rays of dawn. |
| 19 Flames stream from its mouth; sparks of fire shoot out. |
| 20 Smoke pours from its nostrils as from a boiling pot over burning reeds. |
| 21 Its breath sets coals ablaze, and flames dart from its mouth. |
| 22 Strength resides in its neck; dismay goes before it. |
| 23 The folds of its flesh are tightly joined; they are firm and immovable. |
| 24 Its chest is hard as rock, hard as a lower millstone. |
| 25 When it rises up, the mighty are terrified; they retreat before its thrashing. |
| 26 The sword that reaches it has no effect, nor does the spear or the dart or the javelin. |
| 27 Iron it treats like straw and bronze like rotten wood. |
| 28 Arrows do not make it flee; slingstones are like chaff to it. |
| 29 A club seems to it but a piece of straw; it laughs at the rattling of the lance. |
| 30 Its undersides are jagged potsherds, leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing sledge. |
| 31 It makes the depths churn like a boiling caldron and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment. |
| 32 It leaves a glistening wake behind it; one would think the deep had white hair. |
| 33 Nothing on earth is its equal— a creature without fear. |
| 34 It looks down on all that are haughty; it is king over all that are proud.” |
