1 "Can you pull in the leviathan 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 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." |