Job 41-42

1In Hebrew texts 41:1-8 is numbered 40:25-32, and 41:9-34 is numbered 41:1-26. “Can you pull in Leviathan with a fishhook or tie down its tongue with a rope?

2Can you put a cord through its nose or pierce its jaw with a hook?

3Will it keep begging you for mercy? Will it speak to you with gentle words?

4Will it make an agreement with you for you to take it as your slave for life?

5Can you make a pet of it like a bird or put it on a leash for the young women in your house?

6Will traders barter for it? Will they divide it up among the merchants?

7Can you fill its hide with harpoons or its head with fishing spears?

8If you lay a hand on it, you will remember the struggle and never do it again!

9Any hope of subduing it is false; the mere sight of it is overpowering.

10No one is fierce enough to rouse it. Who then is able to stand against me?

11Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me.

12“I will not fail to speak of Leviathan’s limbs, its strength and its graceful form.

13Who can strip off its outer coat? Who can penetrate its double coat of armor Septuagint; Hebrew double bridle ?

14Who dares open the doors of its mouth, ringed about with fearsome teeth?

15Its back has Or Its pride is its rows of shields tightly sealed together;

16each is so close to the next that no air can pass between.

17They are joined fast to one another; they cling together and cannot be parted.

18Its snorting throws out flashes of light; its eyes are like the rays of dawn.

19Flames stream from its mouth; sparks of fire shoot out.

20Smoke pours from its nostrils as from a boiling pot over burning reeds.

21Its breath sets coals ablaze, and flames dart from its mouth.

22Strength resides in its neck; dismay goes before it.

23The folds of its flesh are tightly joined; they are firm and immovable.

24Its chest is hard as rock, hard as a lower millstone.

25When it rises up, the mighty are terrified; they retreat before its thrashing.

26The sword that reaches it has no effect, nor does the spear or the dart or the javelin.

27Iron it treats like straw and bronze like rotten wood.

28Arrows do not make it flee; slingstones are like chaff to it.

29A club seems to it but a piece of straw; it laughs at the rattling of the lance.

30Its undersides are jagged potsherds, leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing sledge.

31It makes the depths churn like a boiling caldron and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment.

32It leaves a glistening wake behind it; one would think the deep had white hair.

33Nothing on earth is its equal— a creature without fear. 34It looks down on all that are haughty; it is king over all that are proud.”

Job 1Then Job replied to the LORD :

2“I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

3You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.

4“You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’

5My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.

6Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”

Epilogue 7After the LORD had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has. 8So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.”

9So Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite did what the LORD told them; and the LORD accepted Job’s prayer. 10After Job had prayed for his friends, the LORD restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before.

11All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house. They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the LORD had brought on him, and each one gave him a piece of silver Hebrew him a kesitah; a kesitah was a unit of money of unknown weight and value. and a gold ring. 12The LORD blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys. 13And he also had seven sons and three daughters. 14The first daughter he named Jemimah, the second Keziah and the third Keren-Happuch.

15Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as Job’s daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers. 16After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. 17And so Job died, an old man and full of years.