Yahweh’s Power Shown in Leviathan

1“ Can you draw out Leviathan with a hook,

and press down his tongue with a rope?

2Can you put a cord in his nose,

and with a hook pierce his jaw?

3Will he multiply to you supplications?

Indeed, will he speak to you softly?

4Will he cut a covenant with you,

to take him as a slave forever?

5Will you play with him like a bird,

and leash him for your maidens?

6Will traders barter for him?

Will they divide him among the merchants?

7Can you fill his skin with harpoons,

or his head with spears of fishing?

8Put your hands on him;

may you remember the battle, and not add.

9Behold, the hope of him is false.

One is even cast down at the sight of him.

10None is so fierce that he would rouse him;

and who is he who will stand before my face?

11Who has brought before Me that I should repay him?†

Under all the heavens it is unto Me.

12I will not keep silent about his limbs,

and the matter of his strength and the grace of his form.

13Who can uncover the face of his clothing?

Who can enter into the double of his bridle?†

14The doors of his face, who can open them?

All around his teeth are terror.

15His rows of shields are his pride,

shut up tight with a seal.

16One by one they draw near,

and air cannot come between them.

17They are joined a man to his brother;

they clasp together and cannot be separated.

18His sneezings flash forth light,

and his eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn.

19From his mouth torches go forth;

sparks of fire leap out.

20From his nostrils smoke comes forth,

boiling like a pot and a reed.

21His breath will kindle the coals,

and a flame goes forth from his mouth.

22In his neck lodges strength,

and before him terror dances.

23The folds of his flesh are joined together,

c on him, and it annot be shaken.

24His heart is as firm as a stone,

even as firm as a lower millstone.

25From his rising up the mighty are afraid;

before his thrashing they withdraw.

26The sword reaching him shall not stand—

not spear, dart, or lance.

27He regards iron as straw,

and bronze as rotten wood.

28The son of the bow cannot make him flee;

the stones of the sling are turned over before him like stubble.

29A club is regarded as stubble,

and he laughs at the rattle of a lance.†

30Beneath him are points of a shard;

he spreads out like a threshing sledge upon the mud.

31He makes the deep boil like a pot;

he makes the sea like an ointment pot.

32Behind him he makes a path shine;

one would think the deep were white-haired.

33There is nothing on earth like him,

the one made devoid of fear.

34He beholds every high thing;

he is king over all the sons of pride.”