Job 39

39 ¹ Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you watch over the does when they give birth? ² Can you count the months they carry their young? Do you know the time they give birth? ³ They crouch down and give birth; their birth pangs are over. ⁴ Their young grow strong in the open field; they leave and do not return.

⁵ Who set the wild donkey free? Who untied the ropes of the swift donkey, ⁶ to whom I gave the wilderness for a home and the salt flats for a dwelling place? ⁷ He scorns the noise of the city and never hears a driver's shout. ⁸ He ranges the mountains for his pasture, searching for every green thing.

⁹ Is the wild ox willing to serve you? Will he spend the night beside your feeding trough? ¹⁰ Can you bind the wild ox to the furrow with ropes? Will he plow the valleys behind you? ¹¹ Will you rely on him because his strength is great? Will you trust your labor to him? ¹² Can you trust him to bring back your grain and gather it to your threshing floor?

¹³ The wings of the ostrich flap joyfully, but are they the feathers and plumage of a stork? ¹⁴ She leaves her eggs on the ground and lets them warm in the dust, ¹⁵ forgetting that a foot may crush them, or a wild animal may trample them. ¹⁶ She treats her young harshly, as if they were not her own; she has no fear that her labor was in vain, ¹⁷ because I made her forget wisdom and gave her no share in understanding. ¹⁸ Yet when she takes off running, she laughs at the horse and its rider.

¹⁹ Do you give the horse his strength? Do you clothe his neck with a flowing mane? ²⁰ Do you make him leap like a locust? His proud snorting strikes terror. ²¹ He paws in the valley and rejoices in his strength; he charges into battle. ²² He laughs at fear and is not terrified; he does not shrink back from the sword. ²³ The quiver rattles against him, the flashing spear and the javelin. ²⁴ With fierce, raging excitement he devours the ground; he cannot stand still when the trumpet sounds. ²⁵ At the blast of the trumpet he says, "Aha!" He catches the scent of battle from afar, the thunder of the commanders and the war cry.

²⁶ Is it by your understanding that the hawk takes flight and spreads his wings toward the south? ²⁷ Is it at your command that the eagle soars and builds his nest on high? ²⁸ He lives on the cliff and makes his home there, on the rocky crag, his stronghold. ²⁹ From there he searches out his food; his eyes spot it from far away. ³⁰ His young ones feast on blood, and wherever the slain are, there he is.