Job 41- 1
- "Can you pull in the leviathan [1] 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 has [2] 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."
- [1] Possibly the crocodile
- [15] Or His pride is his