1 "Can you pull in the leviathan1 41:1 Possibly the crocodile with a fishhook
or tie down his tongue with a rope? |
2 Can you put a cord through his nose
or pierce his jaw with a hook? |
3 Will he keep begging you for mercy?
Will he speak to you with gentle words? |
4 Will he make an agreement with you
for you to take him as your slave for life? |
5 Can you make a pet of him like a bird
or put him on a leash for your girls? |
6 Will traders barter for him?
Will they divide him up among the merchants? |
7 Can you fill his hide with harpoons
or his head with fishing spears? |
8 If you lay a hand on him,
you will remember the struggle and never do it again! |
9 Any hope of subduing him is false;
the mere sight of him is overpowering. |
10 No one is fierce enough to rouse him.
Who then is able to stand against me? |
11 Who has a claim against me that I must pay?
Everything under heaven belongs to me. |
12 "I will not fail to speak of his limbs,
his strength and his graceful form. |
13 Who can strip off his outer coat?
Who would approach him with a bridle? |
14 Who dares open the doors of his mouth,
ringed about with his fearsome teeth? |
15 His back has2 41:15 Or His pride is his rows of shields
tightly sealed together; |
16 each is so close to the next
that no air can pass between. |
17 They are joined fast to one another;
they cling together and cannot be parted. |
18 His snorting throws out flashes of light;
his eyes are like the rays of dawn. |
19 Firebrands stream from his mouth;
sparks of fire shoot out. |
20 Smoke pours from his nostrils
as from a boiling pot over a fire of reeds. |
21 His breath sets coals ablaze,
and flames dart from his mouth. |
22 Strength resides in his neck;
dismay goes before him. |
23 The folds of his flesh are tightly joined;
they are firm and immovable. |
24 His chest is hard as rock,
hard as a lower millstone. |
25 When he rises up, the mighty are terrified;
they retreat before his thrashing. |
26 The sword that reaches him has no effect,
nor does the spear or the dart or the javelin. |
27 Iron he treats like straw
and bronze like rotten wood. |
28 Arrows do not make him flee;
slingstones are like chaff to him. |
29 A club seems to him but a piece of straw;
he laughs at the rattling of the lance. |
30 His undersides are jagged potsherds,
leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing sledge. |
31 He makes the depths churn like a boiling caldron
and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment. |
32 Behind him he leaves a glistening wake;
one would think the deep had white hair. |
33 Nothing on earth is his equal-
a creature without fear. |
34 He looks down on all that are haughty;
he is king over all that are proud." |
