41:1 | "Can you pull in the leviathan with a fishhook or tie down his tongue with a rope? |
41:2 | Can you put a cord through his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook? |
41:3 | Will he keep begging you for mercy? Will he speak to you with gentle words? |
41:4 | Will he make an agreement with you for you to take him as your slave for life? |
41:5 | Can you make a pet of him like a bird or put him on a leash for your girls? |
41:6 | Will traders barter for him? Will they divide him up among the merchants? |
41:7 | Can you fill his hide with harpoons or his head with fishing spears? |
41:8 | If you lay a hand on him, you will remember the struggle and never do it again! |
41:9 | Any hope of subduing him is false; the mere sight of him is overpowering. |
41:10 | No one is fierce enough to rouse him. Who then is able to stand against me? |
41:11 | Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me. |
41:12 | "I will not fail to speak of his limbs, his strength and his graceful form. |
41:13 | Who can strip off his outer coat? Who would approach him with a bridle? |
41:14 | Who dares open the doors of his mouth, ringed about with his fearsome teeth? |
41:15 | His back has rows of shields tightly sealed together; |
41:16 | each is so close to the next that no air can pass between. |
41:17 | They are joined fast to one another; they cling together and cannot be parted. |
41:18 | His snorting throws out flashes of light; his eyes are like the rays of dawn. |
41:19 | Firebrands stream from his mouth; sparks of fire shoot out. |
41:20 | Smoke pours from his nostrils as from a boiling pot over a fire of reeds. |
41:21 | His breath sets coals ablaze, and flames dart from his mouth. |
41:22 | Strength resides in his neck; dismay goes before him. |
41:23 | The folds of his flesh are tightly joined; they are firm and immovable. |
41:24 | His chest is hard as rock, hard as a lower millstone. |
41:25 | When he rises up, the mighty are terrified; they retreat before his thrashing. |
41:26 | The sword that reaches him has no effect, nor does the spear or the dart or the javelin. |
41:27 | Iron he treats like straw and bronze like rotten wood. |
41:28 | Arrows do not make him flee; slingstones are like chaff to him. |
41:29 | A club seems to him but a piece of straw; he laughs at the rattling of the lance. |
41:30 | His undersides are jagged potsherds, leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing sledge. |
41:31 | He makes the depths churn like a boiling caldron and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment. |
41:32 | Behind him he leaves a glistening wake; one would think the deep had white hair. |
41:33 | Nothing on earth is his equal--a creature without fear. |
41:34 | He looks down on all that are haughty; he is king over all that are proud." |
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