- 1“Can you draw out Leviathan with a fish hook, 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. Won’t 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 out light. His eyes are like the eyelids of the morning.
- 19Out of his mouth go burning torches. Sparks of fire leap out.
- 20Out of his nostrils a smoke goes, as of a boiling pot over a fire of reeds.
- 21His breath kindles coals. A flame goes out of his mouth.
- 22There is strength in his neck. 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 attacks him with the sword, it can’t prevail; 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 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.”