Job 39 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.
Do you know when the on the give birth? Have you watched the deer in labor?
Can you count the months they carry, do you know the day they are due,
when they crouch and push their young out and their pain is finished with them?
Their young grow strong out in the open. They leave and
Who let the wild donkey go free? Who untied the ropes on the desert ass?
I gave him the empty country for a house and the salt flats to live on.
He laughs at the racket of the town. He never hears the shout.
He ranges the hills for pasture, hunting anything green.
Will the ox agree to work for you? Will he spend the night at your feed trough?
Can you hold him to a furrow with a rope? Will he break the valleys open behind you?
Would you trust him because his strength is huge? Would you leave your hard work in his hands?
Would you count on him to bring the grain back and pile it on your
The beats her wings with joy, but they are not the wings and feathers of a
She leaves her eggs on the ground, lets the dust keep them warm,
and forgets that a foot could crack them, that a wild animal could walk them flat.
She is hard on her chicks as if they were not hers. Her labor comes to nothing, and it does not frighten her,
because God wisdom and gave no share of understanding.
But when she gets up and runs, she laughs at the horse and the man riding it.
Did you give the horse his strength? Did you dress his neck in
Did you teach him to leap like a locust? The snort of him is glorious and terrifying.
He paws the valley floor and revels in his own force. He goes out to meet the weapons.
He at Nothing shakes him. He does not turn back from the sword.
The quiver rattles against his side, the spear and the javelin flash.
Shaking and furious he the ground. When the horn sounds he cannot stand still.
At every blast he says, Ha! He smells the battle a long way off — the thunder of the commanders, the roar of the men.
Is it your understanding that puts the hawk in the air and spreads his wings toward the south?
Is it at your word that the climbs and builds his nest that high?
He lives on the cliff and stays the night there, on a tooth of rock, in a fortress.
From there he hunts out his food. His eyes catch it from a long way off.
His chicks swallow blood. Wherever the are, that is where he is.