The crocodile
1The Lord said to Job:
‘Can you catch the Leviathan with a fish hook?
Can you tie his mouth with a rope?
2Can you put a rope through his nose
or a hook through his jaw?
3Will he beg you for mercy
or ask: “Please leave me alone?”
4Will he make an agreement with you
and promise you to be your slave forever?
5Can you play with a crocodile
like you play with a bird?
Can you tie him and show him
to your servant girls?
6Can people catch him
and sell him to a merchant?
7Can they throw spears through his skin
and put an iron hook through his head?
8If you have put your hand
on him and touched him,
you will never try doing that again.
You will remember that fight.
9You should know
that you will not defeat him.
When you just look at him,
you start to fear.
10No one is brave enough
to make a crocodile angry.
If people are afraid of a crocodile,
who will be able to stand in front of Me?
11Everything in heaven
and on earth belongs to Me.
No one can say that
he has given Me anything
and that I owe him anything.
12I also want to say something
about the body of a crocodile.
I want to tell you how strong
and well built he is.
13No one can attack him and take off
his skin. His skin is as strong as armour.
14No one can open his jaws,
and everyone is afraid of his teeth.
15The rows of scales on his back
are close together,
16so close that the wind
can not blow through them.
17The scales hold onto each other,
and you can not take one out.
18When the crocodile sneezes,
it looks like flames of a fire,
and his eyes are red like the morning sun.
19There is fire coming out of his mouth,
and fire shoots from his teeth.
20Smoke comes out of his nose,
and it looks like steam from a pot of boiling water.
21His breath lights a fire and
burning flames come from his mouth.
22His neck is very strong,
and all people fear when they see him.
23The softest part of his body
is as hard as metal.
24A crocodile is not afraid of anything.
His heart is as hard as stone,
as hard as a grinding-stone.
25When he comes up from under the water,
everyone who is strong becomes afraid.
People run away when
he hits the water with his tail.
26If someone stabs him with a sword,
it does not hurt him,
and if people try to wound him
with a spear, an arrow or a javelin,
he does not feel it.
27He breaks iron and bronze
as easily as straw,
like wood that has become rotten and soft.
28A crocodile does not flee
from bows_and_arrows,
and stones from a sling do not hurt him.
29A pole can do nothing to him.
He laughs when people throw spears at him.
30The scales on his stomach
are as hard as the pieces of a clay pot.
Where he walks, it seems as if someone
has pulled a threshing-sledge over the ground.
31He makes the deep sea boil like a pot of water,
and he makes the water become full of foam
like a pot of medicine.
32When a crocodile swims,
there is a shining path
in the water behind him.
It seems as if there is foam on the water.
33There is nothing on earth
that can defeat him,
and he is not afraid of anything.
34He looks down on all the proud animals,
and he is more important than they are.
He is the king.’
