Beyond What We Know

^[1] Then the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm. He said: ^[2] “Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? ^[3] Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. ^[4] “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. ^[5] Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? ^[6] On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone- ^[7] while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? ^[8] “Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, ^[9] when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, ^[10] when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, ^[11] when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’? ^[12] “Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place, ^[13] that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it? ^[14] The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its features stand out like those of a garment. ^[15] The wicked are denied their light, and their upraised arm is broken. ^[16] “Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? ^[17] Have the gates of death been shown to you? Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness? ^[18] Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this. ^[19] “What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside? ^[20] Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings? ^[21] Surely you know, for you were already born! You have lived so many years! ^[22] “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail, ^[23] which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle? ^[24] What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed, or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth? ^[25] Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm, ^[26] to water a land where no one lives, an uninhabited desert, ^[27] to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass? ^[28] Does the rain have a father? Who fathers the drops of dew? ^[29] From whose womb comes the ice? Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens ^[30] when the waters become hard as stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen? Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. All rights reserved throughout the world. Used by permission of International Bible Society.