Job 39

1‘You do not know when young goats are born on the mountains.

You are not there to see the young deer when they are born.

2You do not know how many months it will be until the birth of the young deer.

Nor do you know when they will be born.

3The deer bend down and the young deer are born.

Then they have no more pain.

4The young animals become fit and strong.

When they have grown, they leave their parents. And they will not return to them.

5The wild donkeys are free to run where they want.

I let them do that.

6I decided that the desert would be their home.

And I decided that they would live there.

7They do not go near cities where there is a lot of noise.

They do not listen to people who might want them to work.

8They live on the hills where they look for food.

They look for nice green grass to eat.

9A wild ox will not do what you tell it to do.

Nor will it stay in your farm at night.

10It will not let you fasten it to a plough.

Nor will it plough the fields for you.

11The wild ox is a very strong animal.

But you cannot be sure that it will help you to do your work.

12It will not help you to pick the plants in your fields.

Nor will it help you to bring them into your farm.

13The ostrich makes its wings move a lot.

But the ostrich cannot fly, so its wings are not as good as the wings of a stork.

14The ostrich puts its eggs on the ground.

And it lets them get warm in the sand.

15It does not know that a person’s foot may break them.

And it does not know that a wild animal may walk on them.

16It is careless with its eggs. It does not know that they are its eggs.

They were the result of its work. But it will not be sad if someone breaks them.

17This is because I did not make the ostrich wise.

And I did not make it able to think properly.

18But when the ostrich begins to run, it can run very fast.

It can run past the fastest horse.

19You, Job, did not make horses strong.

Nor did you give them all the long hair that they have on their necks.

20You did not make them able to jump like locusts.

And horses also frighten people because of the loud noises that they make.

21A horse knows that it is very strong.

It hits its foot on the ground when it is ready to fight.

22A horse is not afraid of anything.

It is not even afraid when it carries a soldier with his weapons.

23The soldier’s sword shines in the sun.

And the horse feels the sword as it hits against its side.

24It wants to run as fast as it can.

When it hears the trumpet, it wants to run faster.

25When it hears the sound of the trumpet it makes a loud noise.

People may be far away. But it can hear them when they fight.
It can hear the officers in the army when they shout to the soldiers.

26The hawk does not learn from you how to fly.

You do not teach it to fly toward the south in winter.

27You do not tell the eagle that it must fly high into the sky.

You do not show it where to build its home up in the mountains.

28Its home is among the highest rocks where it stays at night.

It knows that it is safe there.

29From there it can look for its food, even if it is far away.

It can see small animals that it wants to catch.

30Its food is the small animals that it kills.

And then the young eagles come and they drink the blood of the dead animals.’