The LORD Challenges Job 2 UST “You have been speaking ignorantly, and as a result, you have been making it harder for people to understand my actions. BSB BSB: “Who is this who obscures My counsel by words without knowledge?
3 UST I am going to ask you some questions, so get ready to answer them directly. BSB BSB: Now brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall inform Me.
5 UST Who decided how large the earth would be? Who made sure that it was the right size? If you know as much as you claim, you ought to be able to tell me that. BSB BSB: Who fixed its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched a measuring line across it?
6 UST What keeps the earth from collapsing? Who made sure that everything on the earth would be in the right position? The earth was so beautiful when I made it that it was as if the first stars all sang a song to celebrate it. All of the angels gave a great cheer when they saw the earth. BSB BSB: On what were its foundations set, or who laid its cornerstone,
8 UST When I made the land, the sea could have flowed over it. Who prevented the sea from flooding the earth? BSB BSB: Who enclosed the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb,
9 UST Now the clouds in the sky float over the sea as if they were its clothing. Night and day happen at sea just as they do on land. BSB BSB: when I made the clouds its garment and thick darkness its blanket,
10 UST I decided how much of the area under the sky the sea would cover. I made barriers at the shore of the sea to keep it off the land. BSB BSB: when I fixed its boundaries and set in place its bars and doors,
11 UST I proclaimed that the sea could only come up so far on the shore and not come any farther. I said that its great waves could only flow up to a certain place on the land. BSB BSB: and I declared: ‘You may come this far, but no farther; here your proud waves must stop’?
12 UST Job, have you ever commanded a day to begin? Have you told the sun where it needed to rise on a certain day? BSB BSB: In your days, have you commanded the morning or assigned the dawn its place,
13 UST When day comes, wicked people all around the world stop doing the bad things they do at night when no one can see them. BSB BSB: that it might spread to the ends of the earth and shake the wicked out of it?
14 UST In the light of day, people can see the hills and valleys on earth clearly. The earth seems to take shape the way clay takes shape when people press a seal onto it or the way folds form in clothing. BSB BSB: The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its hills stand out like the folds of a garment.
15 UST When daylight comes, wicked people do not have the darkness that they like. They are no longer able to hurt other people. BSB BSB: Light is withheld from the wicked, and their upraised arm is broken.
16 UST Job, have you traveled to the springs at the bottom of the sea? Have you gone and seen what is at the very bottom of the oceans? BSB BSB: Have you journeyed to the vents of the sea or walked in the trenches of the deep?
17 UST Has someone shown you how to get to the place where dead people are? Do you know where the entrance to that dark place is? BSB BSB: Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Have you seen the gates of the shadow of death?
18 UST Do you know how big the earth is? Tell me, if you know all these things! BSB BSB: Have you surveyed the extent of the earth? Tell Me, if you know all this.
19 UST Do you know how to get to the place where light comes from? Do you know where darkness comes from? BSB BSB: Where is the way to the home of light? Do you know where darkness resides,
20 UST Would you know how to get to those places so that you could bring light and darkness to them? BSB BSB: so you can lead it back to its border? Do you know the paths to its home?
21 UST If you had been alive when I created the world, then you would know the answers to these questions. But you are not that old, so you certainly do not know the answers. BSB BSB: Surely you know, for you were already born! And the number of your days is great!
22 UST Have you gone into the place where I keep snow, or have you visited the place where I keep hail? BSB BSB: Have you entered the storehouses of snow or observed the storehouses of hail,
23 UST I keep snow and hail so that I can use them to defeat one of the armies when people are fighting wars. BSB BSB: which I hold in reserve for times of trouble, for the day of war and battle?
24 UST Would you know how to get to the place where the sun should rise each morning? Would you know where the east wind should begin to blow over the earth? BSB BSB: In which direction is the lightning dispersed, or the east wind scattered over the earth?
25 UST Could you make rain fall in a certain place? Could you make a rainstorm go in a certain direction BSB BSB: Who cuts a channel for the flood or clears a path for the thunderbolt,
26 UST so that it would rain out in the desert, in a place where no one lives? BSB BSB: to bring rain on a barren land, on a desert where no man lives,
27 UST Would you be able to send rain there to water those barren areas where nothing has grown, so that grass would begin to grow again? BSB BSB: to satisfy the parched wasteland and make it sprout with tender grass?
28 UST Do you even know where rain comes from? Do you know how dew forms on the ground overnight? BSB BSB: Does the rain have a father? Who has begotten the drops of dew?
29 UST Do you know how water becomes ice in the winter? Do you know why dew turns into the frost that covers the ground in the winter? BSB BSB: From whose womb does the ice emerge? Who gives birth to the frost from heaven,
30 UST Do you know why the surface of lakes freezes in the winter? You cannot see the water below the surface; it is as if there is a layer of stone on top of it. BSB BSB: when the waters become hard as stone and the surface of the deep is frozen?
31 UST Can you make stars cluster together, as they do in the cluster you call the Pleiades? Can you make stars move apart so that they no longer make constellations such as the one you call Orion? BSB BSB: Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades or loosen the belt of Orion?
32 UST Can you make the constellations of stars appear in the sky at the right time of the year? Can you make the Big Dipper with its handle appear in the right place in the sky? BSB BSB: Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear and her cubs?
33 UST Do you know how the sun, moon, and stars should move through the sky? Do you know how they should provide heat and light on the earth? BSB BSB: Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set their dominion over the earth?
34 UST Could you shout an order up to a cloud to make it pour rain down on you? BSB BSB: Can you command the clouds so that a flood of water covers you?
35 UST Can you tell flashes of lightning to strike wherever you want? Would the lightning do what you commanded? BSB BSB: Can you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?
36 UST Can you determine where it should be cloudy and where it should be sunny? BSB BSB: Who has put wisdom in the heart or given understanding to the mind?
37 UST Are you able to count how many clouds there are? Can you make it rain BSB BSB: Who has the wisdom to count the clouds? Or who can tilt the water jars of the heavens
38 UST after it has not rained for such a long time that the ground is hard and dry? BSB BSB: when the dust hardens into a mass and the clods of earth stick together?
41 UST Suppose some baby ravens in a nest were chirping loudly because they were hungry. Suppose they had not eaten in so long that they had become weak. Could you provide a dead animal whose meat the raven could bring home to its baby birds? BSB BSB: Who provides food for the raven when its young cry out to God as they wander about for lack of food?
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