Job 37

¹ At this my own heart quakes, and leaps from its place.

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

³ He hurls his lightning below the span of heaven, it strikes to the very ends of the earth.

⁴ After it comes the roar of his voice, the peal of God’s majestic thunder. He does not check his thunderbolts until his voice resounds no more.

⁵ No doubt of it, but God reveals wonders, and does great deeds that we cannot understand.

⁶ When he says to the snow, ‘Fall on the earth’ or tells the rain to pour down in torrents,

⁷ he brings all men’s strivings to a standstill so that each must acknowledge his hand at work.

⁸ All the beasts go back to their dens, taking shelter in their lairs.

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

¹⁰ God breathes, and the ice is there, the surface of the waters freezes over.

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

¹² He himself guides their wheeling motion directing all their seasonal changes: they carry out his orders to the letter all over his inhabited world.

¹³ Whether for punishing earth’s peoples or for a work of mercy, he despatches them.

¹⁴ Listen to all this Job: no backsliding now! Meditate on God’s wonders.

¹⁵ Can you tell how God controls them or how his clouds make the lightning flash?

¹⁶ Can you tell how he holds the clouds in balance: 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 help him to spread the vault of heaven, or temper that mirror of cast metal?

¹⁹ Tell me what to say to him: . . . . . . . . . . . . .

²⁰ Can my words carry weight with him? Do man’s commands reach his ears?

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 justice, yet no oppressor –

²⁴ no wonder that men fear him, and thoughtful men hold him in awe.