The Preacher's Bible

“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 will 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 to one 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 bronze 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.”