Job 38.40
New International Version

Intervention de Dieu

Description des œuvres divines

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?

³¹ “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades?
Can you loosen Orion’s belt?

³² Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons
or lead out the Bear with its cubs?

³³ Do you know the laws of the heavens?
Can you set up God’s dominion over the earth?

³⁴ “Can you raise your voice to the clouds
and cover yourself with a flood of water?

³⁵ Do you send the lightning bolts on their way?
Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?

³⁶ Who gives the ibis wisdom
or gives the rooster understanding?

³⁷ Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?
Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens

³⁸ when the dust becomes hard
and the clods of earth stick together?

Les soins divins pour les animaux

³⁹ “Do you hunt the prey for the lioness
and satisfy the hunger of the lions

⁴⁰ when they crouch in their dens
or lie in wait in a thicket?

⁴¹ Who provides food for the raven
when its young cry out to God
and wander about for lack of food?