Job

Do you know how mountain goats reproduce? Have you watched the does during labor,

numbered the months they need to complete, and set the time they are supposed to give birth?

Have you watched them end their labor as they crouch and drop their young,

how they wait for them to grow, until they leave, never to return?

Who has given the wild ass his freedom, and loosed the bonds of the wild donkey?

I have given him the desert for a home, the salt plains for a shelter.

For he scorns the city’s tumult, and is free from the driver’s shout and insult;

he prefers the hills for his pasture, ranging for food in the rich verdure.

Is the wild ox willing to serve you, to spend the night by your manger?

Can you make him work with a plow or harrow if you give him the right gear?

Can you trust his great strength and let him do your heavy work?

Can you count on him to come home alone, carrying your grain to your threshing floor?

Can the wing of the ostrich be compared with the plumage of the stork or falcon?

She lays her eggs on the ground and lets them warm in the sand,

not knowing that a foot may step on them or some wild beast may crush them.

Cruel to her chicks as if they were not hers, she cares not that her labor be in vain,

for God has given her no wisdom nor a share of good sense.

Yet in the quickness of her foot, she mocks horse and rider.

Is it you who gives the horse strength and dresses his neck in splendor,

who makes him leap like a grasshopper and his proud snorting strike fear?

Rejoicing in his strength, he fiercely paws and charges into the fray,

afraid of nothing, laughing at fear, not shying away from the sword.

Against his side rattles the quiver, along with the lance and flashing spear.

In frenzied excitement he eats up the ground; there is no holding him when the trumpets sound.

He cries “Hurrah!” at every trumpet blast. He detects the smell of battle from a distance, the shouts of commanders and the battle cry.

Is it by your wisdom that the hawk takes flight and spreads his wings toward the south?

Is it at your command that eagles fly and build their nests on high?

They dwell on cliffs and spend the night; their stronghold is the rocky crag.

From there, they look out for food, which they detect even from afar.

They and their young feast on blood, and where the slain lie, there they are.