1Do you know the time when the mountain goats give birth? Do you watch over the calving of the deer?
2Can you count the months they must fulfill? Do you know the time they give birth?
3They crouch, they bring forth their young; they cast out their labor pains.
4Their young grow strong, they thrive in the open field; they go out and do not return to them.
5Who set the wild donkey free? And who loosed the bonds of the swift ass?
6whose home I made the wilderness, and the salt flats his dwellings.
7He laughs at the uproar of the city; he does not hear the shouts of the driver.
8He scouts the mountains as his pasture, and searches after every green thing.
9Is the wild ox willing to serve you? Will he lodge by your feeding trough?
10Can you bind the wild ox in the furrow with his rope? Or will he harrow the valleys behind you?
11Will you trust him because his strength is great, and leave your labor to him?
12Will you trust him that your seed will come back, and that he will gather it to your threshing floor?
13The wing of the ostrich flaps joyously — but is it the pinion and plumage of a stork?
14For she abandons her eggs to the earth and lets them warm on the dust,
15and she forgets that a foot may crush them, or that a wild beast may trample them.
16She treats her young harshly, as if they were not hers; her labor is in vain, without fear —
17for God made her forget wisdom, and gave her no share in understanding.
18Yet when she rouses herself to the heights, she laughs at the horse and its rider.
19Do you give the horse his might? Do you clothe his neck with a mane?
20Do you make him leap like the locust? The majesty of his snorting is terror.
21They paw in the valley, and he exults in his strength; he goes out to meet the weapons.
22He laughs at fear and is not dismayed; he does not turn back before the sword.
23Against him rattles the quiver, the flashing spear and javelin.
24With shaking and rage he swallows up the ground; he cannot stand still when the trumpet sounds.
25At the sound of the trumpet he says, ‘Aha!’ and from afar he smells the battle — the thunder of the commanders and the war cry.
26Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars, spreading his wings toward the south?
27Or is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes his nest on high?
28He dwells on the rock and lodges there, on a crag of the rock and a stronghold.
29From there he spies out food; his eyes look far off.
30His young ones gulp down blood; and where the slain are, there he is.
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