God's Power Shown in Creatures

1“Can you draw out Leviathan with a fish hook, or press down his tongue with a cord?

2Can you put a rope into his nose, or pierce his jaw through with a hook?

3Will he make many petitions to you, or will he speak soft words to you?

4Will he make a covenant with you, that you should take him for a servant forever?

5Will you play with him as with a bird? Or will you bind him for your girls?

6Will traders barter for him? Will they part him among the merchants?

7Can you fill his skin with barbed irons, or his head with fish spears?

8Lay your hand on him. Remember the battle, and do so no more.

9Behold, the hope of him is in vain. Won’t one be cast down even at the sight of him?

10None is so fierce that he dare stir him up. Who then is he who can stand before me?

11Who has first given to me, that I should repay him? Everything under the heavens is mine.

12“I will not keep silence concerning his limbs, nor his mighty strength, nor his goodly frame.

13Who can strip off his outer garment? Who will come within his jaws?

14Who can open the doors of his face? Around his teeth is terror.

15Strong scales are his pride, shut up together with a close seal.

16One is so near to another, that no air can come between them.

17They are joined to one another. They stick together, so that they can’t be pulled apart.

18His sneezing flashes out light. His eyes are like the eyelids of the morning.

19Out of his mouth go burning torches. Sparks of fire leap out.

20Out of his nostrils a smoke goes, as of a boiling pot over a fire of reeds.

21His breath kindles coals. A flame goes out of his mouth.

22There is strength in his neck. Terror dances before him.

23The flakes of his flesh are joined together. They are firm on him. They can’t be moved.

24His heart is as firm as a stone, yes, firm as the lower millstone.

25When he raises himself up, the mighty are afraid. They retreat before his thrashing.

26If one attacks him with the sword, it can’t prevail; nor the spear, the dart, nor the pointed shaft.

27He counts iron as straw, and bronze as rotten wood.

28The arrow can’t make him flee. Sling stones are like chaff to him.

29Clubs are counted as stubble. He laughs at the rushing of the javelin.

30His undersides are like sharp potsherds, leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing sledge.

31He makes the deep to boil like a pot. He makes the sea like a pot of ointment.

32He makes a path shine after him. One would think the deep had white hair.

33On earth there is not his equal, that is made without fear.

34He sees everything that is high. He is king over all the sons of pride.”