Job 41

¹ Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook
or press down his tongue with a cord?

² Can you put a rope in his nose
or pierce his jaw with a hook?

³ Will he make many pleas to you?
Will he speak to you in soft words?

⁴ Will he make a covenant with you
to take him for your servant forever?

⁵ Will you play with him as with a bird,
or will you put him on a leash for your girls?

⁶ Will traders bargain over him?
Will they divide him up among the merchants?

⁷ Can you fill his skin with harpoons
or his head with fishing spears?

⁸ Lay your hand on him;
remember the battle — you will not do it again!

⁹ Behold, the hope of a man is false;
he is laid low even at the sight of him.

¹⁰ No one is so fierce that he dares to stir him up.
Who then is he who can stand before me?

¹¹ Who has given to me, that I should repay him?
Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine.

¹² I will not keep silence concerning his limbs,
or his mighty strength, or his splendid frame.

¹³ Who can strip off his outer garment?
Who would come near him with a bridle?

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

¹⁵ His back is made of rows of shields,
shut up closely as with a seal.

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

¹⁷ They are joined one to another;
they clasp each other and cannot be separated.

¹⁸ His sneezings flash forth light,
and his eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn.

¹⁹ Out of his mouth go flaming torches;
sparks of fire leap out.

²⁰ Out of his nostrils comes smoke,
as from a boiling pot and burning rushes.

²¹ His breath sets coals ablaze,
and flame comes out of his mouth.

²² In his neck lodges strength,
and before him terror dances.

²³ The folds of his flesh stick together;
they are firmly cast on him and immovable.

²⁴ His heart is hard as stone,
hard as the lower millstone.

²⁵ When he rises up, the mighty are afraid;
before the crashing they are beside themselves.

²⁶ Though the sword reaches him, it does not avail,
nor the spear, the dart, or the javelin.

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

²⁸ The arrow cannot make him flee;
slingstones are turned to stubble for him.

²⁹ Clubs are counted as stubble;
he laughs at the rattling of the javelin.

³⁰ His underparts are like sharp potsherds;
he spreads himself like a threshing sledge on the mire.

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

³² Behind him he leaves a shining wake;
one would think the deep to be white-haired.

³³ On earth there is not his like,
a creature made without fear.

³⁴ He looks on everything that is high;
he is king over all the sons of pride.