¹Do you know the time

When the mountain goats give birth?

Or do you keep watch over the time

When the hinds calve?

²Can you count the months for which they gestate?

And do you know the time when they give birth?

³They crouch,

They deliver their young;

They cast off their labour pangs.

⁴Their young grow strong;

They grow up in the open field.

They go out

And do not return.

⁵Who set the wild ass free?

And who loosed the bonds of the wild donkey?

⁶– Whose home territory I appointed to be the arid tracts,

And whose dwelling places to be salt land?

⁷He derides the urban crowd

And does not hear the clamour of the taskmaster.

⁸The forageable area of the mountains is his pasture,

And he searches for every green plant.

⁹Does the buffalo love to work for you?

And does it lodge in your stall?

¹⁰Can you bind the buffalo to his harness

For ploughing a furrow?

Or will he harrow the valleys behind you?

¹¹Do you put your trust in him?

For his strength is great.

And do you leave your toil to him?

¹²Will you put your trust in him,

That he will make a return on your seed,

And gather it in your threshing hall?

¹³Are you responsible for it when the wing of the ostrich is celebrated,

Or the wing feather of the stork and its plumage?

¹⁴For she commits her eggs to the ground

And hatches them on soil,

¹⁵And she forgets that a foot may crush them,

And that a wild animal may trample on them.

¹⁶She treats her young harshly,

As if not her own.

Her labour is in vain and without fear.

¹⁷For God causes her to forget wisdom,

And he has not apportioned her with understanding.

¹⁸In due time she rises on high

And looks down on the horse and on its rider.

¹⁹Did you give the horse his strength?

Did you clothe his neck with a mane?

²⁰Did you give him the ability to jump like a locust?

The dignity of his snorting is awesome.

²¹He paws in the valley

And rejoices in his strength

And engages in battle.

²²He derides fear

And is not afraid

And does not turn back from the sword.

²³Alongside him the quiver rattles,

And the blade of the spear and the lance.

²⁴With noise and raging, he stamps the earth

And does not stand in place when the sound of the ramshorn is heard.

²⁵Whenever the ramshorn is heard,

He says, ‘Aha!’,

And smells war from a distance

– The thunder of generals and the sound of alarm.

²⁶Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars

And stretches its wings to the south?

²⁷Or is it according to your command that the eagle soars,

And that it makes its nest high up?

²⁸It dwells and lodges on a rock,

On a crag and citadel.

²⁹For there it seeks prey;

Its eyes see it from a distance.

³⁰And its young suck up blood,

And wherever the slain are,

There it is.”