Job - The Old Testament

¹ At this, my very heart quakes and leaps out of its place.

² Listen, oh listen, to the blast of his voice and the sound that issues from his mouth.

³ His lightning is hurled across the heaven, it strikes to the extremities of earth.

⁴ After it comes a roaring sound, God thunders with majestic voice. He does not check his thunderbolts until his voice resounds no more.

⁵ Yes, certainly God shows us marvels and does great deeds that we cannot understand.

⁶ When he says to the snow, 'Fall on the earth!' to the showers, 'Now rain hard!'

⁷ he brings all human activity to a standstill, for everyone to acknowledge his work.

⁸ The animals go back to their dens and take shelter in their lairs.

⁹ The storm wind comes from the Mansion of the South, and the north winds usher in the cold.

¹⁰ At the breath of God, ice comes next, the surface of the waters hardens over.

¹¹ He weighs the clouds down with moisture, and the storm clouds radiate his lightning.

¹² He himself guides their wheeling motion presiding over their seasonal changes. They carry out his orders to the letter all over this earthly world.

¹³ Whether to punish earth's peoples or as a work of faithful love, he despatches them.

¹⁴ Listen to this, Job, without flinching and reflect on the marvellous works of God.

¹⁵ Do you know how God controls them or how his clouds make the lightning flash?

¹⁶ Do you know how he balances the clouds -- a miracle of consummate skill?

¹⁷ When your clothes are hot to your body and the earth lies still under the south wind,

¹⁸ can you, like him, stretch out the sky, tempered like a mirror of cast metal?

¹⁹ Teach me what we should say to him: but better discuss no further, since we are in the dark.

²⁰ Does he take note when I speak? When human beings give orders, does he take it in?

²¹ There are times when the light vanishes, behind darkening clouds; then comes the wind, sweeping them away.

²² and brightness spreads from the north. God is clothed in fearful splendour:

²³ he, Shaddai, is far beyond our reach. Supreme in power, in equity, excelling in saving justice, yet no oppressor-

²⁴ no wonder then that people fear him: everyone thoughtful holds him in awe!