¹ “Do you know the time when the goats of the rocks give birth? Do you observe the doe deer’s giving birth?

² Can you number the months they fulfill, and do you know the time of its giving birth?

³ When they crouch, they bring forth their young ones; they get rid of their labor pains.¹

1. Or “deliver their fetuses”

⁴ Their young ones grow strong; they grow up in the open; they go forth and do not return to them.

⁵ “Who has sent forth the wild ass free? And who has released the wild donkey’s bonds,

⁶ to which I have given the wilderness as its house and the salt flat as its dwelling place?

⁷ It scorns the city’s turmoil; it does not hear the driver’s shouts.

⁸ It explores the mountains as its pasture and searches after every kind of green plant.

⁹ “Is the wild ox willing to serve you, or will he spend the night at your feeding trough?

¹⁰ Can you tie the wild ox with its rope to a furrow, or will it harrow the valleys after you?

¹¹ Can you trust it because its strength is great, or will you hand your labor over to it?

¹² Can you rely on it that it will return your grain and that it will gather it to your threshing floor?

¹³ “The wings¹ of the female ostrich flap²— are they³ the pinions of the stork or⁴ the falcon?

1. Hebrew “wing”
2. Or “flaps”
3. Or “if,” or “or”
4. Hebrew “and”

¹⁴ Indeed, it leaves its eggs to the earth, and it lets them be warmed on the ground,

¹⁵ and it forgets that a foot might crush an egg,¹ and ⌞a wild animal⌟² might trample it.³

1. Hebrew “it”; or a collective singular (“them”) referring to “eggs” in v. 14
2. Literally “an animal of the field”
3. Or a collective singular (“them”) referring to “eggs” in v. 14

¹⁶ It deals cruelly with its young ones, as if they were not its own, as if without fear that its labor were in vain,

¹⁷ because God made it forget wisdom, and he did not give it a share in understanding.

¹⁸ When it spreads its wings ⌞aloft⌟,¹ it laughs at the horse and its rider.

1. Literally “in the height”

¹⁹ “Do you give power to the horse? Do you clothe its neck with a mane?

²⁰ Do you make it leap like the locust? The majesty of its snorting is terrifying.

²¹ They paw in the valley, and it exults with strength; it goes out to meet the battle.

²² It laughs at danger and is not dismayed, and it does not turn back from ⌞before⌟¹ the sword.

1. Literally “from faces of”

²³ Upon it the quiver rattles along with the flash of the spear and the short sword.

²⁴ With roar and rage ⌞it races over the ground⌟,¹ and it cannot stand still at the sound of the horn.

1. Or “it paws the ground”; literally “it swallows the earth/ground”

²⁵ ⌞Whenever⌟¹ a horn sounds, it says, ‘Aha!’ And it smells the battle from a distance— the thunder of the commanders and the war cry.

1. Literally “At enough”

²⁶ “Does the hawk soar by your wisdom? Does it spread its wings to the south?

²⁷ Or does the eagle fly high at your command and construct its nest high?

²⁸ It lives on the rock and spends the night ⌞on the rock point and the mountain stronghold⌟.¹

1. Literally “on the tooth of the rock and the stronghold”

²⁹ From there it spies out the prey; its eyes look from far away.

³⁰ And its young ones lick blood greedily, and where the dead carcasses are, there they are.”