Job 39:1-30 VOICE

[1] Eternal One: Do you know the time when the mountain goats give birth? Do you attend at the doe's delivery? [2] Can you keep track of the months until each carries to term? Do you even know their calving season? [3] They drop to their knees to birth their young, and their labor pains cease to grip. [4] Their offspring grow to their full strength in the open field; then they leave and do not return. [5] Who set the wild donkey free? Who cut it loose from its bonds? [6] I gave it the wastelands for a home and the salt flats for a dwelling. [7] It avoids the commotion of the city; it is far from the shouts of the mule driver and never has to obey one. [8] Instead, it trundles through hills in search of pasture, its eyes ever watchful for a patch of green. [9] Is the wild ox willing to serve you? Will it be content to stay the night beside your feeding trough? [10] Can you confine the wild ox with a rope to plow a straight furrow? Will it cultivate the valleys as you pull him along? [11] Can you trust it simply because of its enormous strength? Can you really leave your work to it without guiding it? [12] Can you depend on it to return the remaining seed to you, to carry the grain to your threshing floor? [13] The ostrich flaps her wings, and the ringing joy is heard. But her wings and pinions are not like a stork's. She cannot fly. [14] She is different from other birds, for she lays her eggs straight on the ground, and she incubates them in the bare dust. [15] She forgets that a foot might crush them or a wild animal trample them. [16] She is harsh to her young, as if they were not even hers. She is unconcerned at the futility of her labor, [17] For God denied her a share of wisdom, and in doling out understanding, He passed her by. [18] Oh and yet, look at her when the time comes to run- she spreads her strange wings and laughs at the horse who must be guided by his rider although she is an absurd bird who can't even fly. [19] And oh, of course-now let us speak of the horse! Do you give that creature its power? Do you adorn its neck with that flowing mane? [20] Do you make it leap like a locust and terrify the enemy with its dreadful snorting? [21] It paws and stamps the valley ground, prancing and gloating at its strength; and it greets the battle with a charge. [22] It laughs at fear, is a stranger to panic, and will not turn away from any oncoming blade. [23] Though the quiver's arrows rattle at its side, though the spear and lance flash in its eyes, [24] It is a storm and a fury devouring the ground ahead, set off by the blast of the trumpet, unable to stand still. [25] Stirred by the trumpet sound to charge, the horse responds with its own blast and smells the blood of battle from a distance, amid commands barked by officers and shouts of alarm. [26] Does the hawk take flight by your wisdom, stretching its wings toward the south? [27] Does the eagle take flight at your command, or build its nest in the towering heights? [28] On jutting cliffs it lives and keeps the night; on rocky crags it builds its mountain stronghold. [29] From there it spies its prey; its keen eyes discover its victim still far off. [30] Its young ones feast on blood, and wherever the slain lie, there it is.