Job 39  New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition

39 ‘Do you know when the mountain goats give birth?
    Do you observe the calving of the deer?
² Can you number the months that they fulfil,
    and do you know the time when they give birth,
³ when they crouch to give birth to their offspring,
    and are delivered of their young?
⁴ Their young ones become strong, they grow up in the open;
    they go forth, and do not return to them.

⁵ ‘Who has let the wild ass go free?
    Who has loosed the bonds of the swift ass,
⁶ to which I have given the steppe for its home,
    the salt land for its dwelling-place?
⁷ It scorns the tumult of the city;
    it does not hear the shouts of the driver.
⁸ It ranges the mountains as its pasture,
    and it searches after every green thing.

⁹ ‘Is the wild ox willing to serve you?
    Will it spend the night at your crib?
¹⁰ Can you tie it in the furrow with ropes,
    or will it harrow the valleys after you?
¹¹ Will you depend on it because its strength is great,
    and will you hand over your labour to it?
¹² Do you have faith in it that it will return,
    and bring your grain to your threshing-floor?^[a]

¹³ ‘The ostrich’s wings flap wildly,
    though its pinions lack plumage.^[b]
14 For it leaves its eggs to the earth,
    and lets them be warmed on the ground,
¹⁵ forgetting that a foot may crush them,
    and that a wild animal may trample them.
¹⁶ It deals cruelly with its young, as if they were not its own;
    though its labour should be in vain, yet it has no fear;
¹⁷ because God has made it forget wisdom,
    and given it no share in understanding.
¹⁸ When it spreads its plumes aloft,^[c]
    it laughs at the horse and its rider.

¹⁹ ‘Do you give the horse its might?
    Do you clothe its neck with mane?
²⁰ Do you make it leap like the locust?
    Its majestic snorting is terrible.
²¹ It paws^[d] violently, exults mightily;
    it goes out to meet the weapons.
²² It laughs at fear, and is not dismayed;
    it does not turn back from the sword.
²³ Upon it rattle the quiver,
    the flashing spear, and the javelin.
²⁴ With fierceness and rage it swallows the ground;
    it cannot stand still at the sound of the trumpet.
²⁵ When the trumpet sounds, it says “Aha!”
    From a distance it smells the battle,
    the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.

²⁶ ‘Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars,
    and spreads its wings towards the south?
²⁷ Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up
    and makes its nest on high?
²⁸ It lives on the rock and makes its home
    in the fastness of the rocky crag.
²⁹ From there it spies the prey;
    its eyes see it from far away.
³⁰ Its young ones suck up blood;
    and where the slain are, there it is.’