Job
41
- "Can you pull in the leviathan with
a fishhook or tie down his tongue with a rope ?
- Can you put a cord through his nose or pierce
his jaw with a hook ?
- Will he keep begging you for mercy? Will
he speak to you with gentle words ?
- Will he make an agreement with you for you
to take him as your slave for life ?
- Can you make a pet of him like a bird or
put him on a leash for your girls ?
- Will traders barter for him? Will they divide
him up among the merchants ?
- Can you fill his hide with harpoons or his
head with fishing spears ?
- If you lay a hand on him, you will remember
the struggle and never do it again !
- Any hope of subduing him is false; the mere
sight of him is overpowering.
- No one is fierce enough to rouse him. Who
then is able to stand against me ?
- Who has a claim against me that I must pay?
Everything under heaven belongs to me.
- "I will not fail to speak of his limbs,
his strength and his graceful form.
- Who can strip off his outer coat? Who would
approach him with a bridle ?
- Who dares open the doors of his mouth, ringed
about with his fearsome teeth ?
- His back has rows of shields tightly sealed
together;
- each is so close to the next that no air
can pass between.
- They are joined fast to one another; they
cling together and cannot be parted.
- His snorting throws out flashes of light;
his eyes are like the rays of dawn.
- Firebrands stream from his mouth; sparks
of fire shoot out.
- Smoke pours from his nostrils as from a
boiling pot over a fire of reeds.
- His breath sets coals ablaze, and flames
dart from his mouth.
- Strength resides in his neck; dismay goes
before him.
- The folds of his flesh are tightly joined;
they are firm and immovable.
- His chest is hard as rock, hard as a lower
millstone.
- When he rises up, the mighty are terrified;
they retreat before his thrashing.
- The sword that reaches him has no effect,
nor does the spear or the dart or the javelin.
- Iron he treats like straw and bronze like
rotten wood.
- Arrows do not make him flee; slingstones
are like chaff to him.
- A club seems to him but a piece of straw;
he laughs at the rattling of the lance.
- His undersides are jagged potsherds, leaving
a trail in the mud like a threshing sledge.
- He makes the depths churn like a boiling
caldron and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment.
- Behind him he leaves a glistening wake;
one would think the deep had white hair.
- Nothing on earth is his equal -- a creature
without fear.
- He looks down on all that are haughty; he
is king over all that are proud."
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