Chapter 41

¹“Can you draw out Leviathan⁴⁸⁴⁸Leviathan is a name for a crocodile or similar creature. with a fishhook?

Or press down his tongue with a cord?

²Can you put a rope into his nose?

Or pierce his jaw through with a hook?

³Will he make many petitions to you?

Or will he speak soft words to you?

⁴Will he make a covenant with you,

That you should take him for a servant forever?

⁵Will you play with him as with a bird?

Or will you bind him for your girls?

⁶Will traders barter for him?

Will they part him among the merchants?

⁷Can you fill his skin with barbed irons,

Or his head with fish spears?

⁸Lay your hand on him.

Remember the battle, and do so no more.

⁹Behold, the hope of him is in vain.

Will not one be cast down even at the sight of him?

¹⁰None is so fierce that he dare stir him up.

Who then is he who can stand before me?

¹¹Who has first given to me, that I should repay him?

Everything under the heavens is mine.

¹²“I will not keep silence concerning his limbs,

Nor his mighty strength, nor his goodly frame.

¹³Who can strip off his outer garment?

Who shall come within his jaws?

¹⁴Who can open the doors of his face?

Around his teeth is terror.

¹⁵Strong scales are his pride,

Shut up together with a close seal.

¹⁶One is so near to another,

That no air can come between them.

¹⁷They are joined one to another;

They stick together, so that they can’t be pulled apart.

¹⁸His sneezing flashes forth light,

His eyes are like the eyelids of the morning.

¹⁹Out of his mouth go burning torches,

Sparks of fire leap forth.

²⁰Out of his nostrils a smoke goes,

As of a boiling pot over a fire of reeds.

²¹His breath kindles coals.

A flame goes forth from his mouth.

²²In his neck there is strength.

Terror dances before him.

²³The flakes of his flesh are joined together.

They are firm on him. They can’t be moved.

²⁴His heart is as firm as a stone,

Yes, firm as the lower millstone.

²⁵When he raises himself up, the mighty are afraid.

They retreat before his thrashing.

²⁶If one lay at him with the sword, it can’t avail;

Nor the spear, the dart, nor the pointed shaft.

²⁷He counts iron as straw;

And brass as rotten wood.

²⁸The arrow can’t make him flee.

Sling stones are like chaff to him.

²⁹Clubs are counted as stubble.

He laughs at the rushing of the javelin.

³⁰His undersides are like sharp potsherds,

Leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing sledge.

³¹He makes the deep to boil like a pot.

He makes the sea like a pot of ointment.

³²He makes a path to shine after him.

One would think the deep had white hair.

³³On earth there is not his equal,

That is made without fear.

³⁴He sees everything that is high:

He is king over all the sons of pride.”