³⁹‘Do you know when the mountain goats give birth?   Do you observe the calving of the deer?² Can you number the months that they fulfil,   and do you know the time when they give birth,³ when they crouch to give birth to their offspring,   and are delivered of their young?⁴ Their young ones become strong, they grow up in the open;   they go forth, and do not return to them. ⁵ ‘Who has let the wild ass go free?   Who has loosed the bonds of the swift ass,⁶ to which I have given the steppe for its home,   the salt land for its dwelling-place?⁷ It scorns the tumult of the city;   it does not hear the shouts of the driver.⁸ It ranges the mountains as its pasture,   and it searches after every green thing. ⁹ ‘Is the wild ox willing to serve you?   Will it spend the night at your crib?¹⁰ Can you tie it in the furrow with ropes,   or will it harrow the valleys after you?¹¹ Will you depend on it because its strength is great,   and will you hand over your labour to it?¹² Do you have faith in it that it will return,   and bring your grain to your threshing-floor? ¹³ ‘The ostrich’s wings flap wildly,   though its pinions lack plumage. ¹⁴ For it leaves its eggs to the earth,   and lets them be warmed on the ground,¹⁵ forgetting that a foot may crush them,   and that a wild animal may trample them.¹⁶ It deals cruelly with its young, as if they were not its own;   though its labour should be in vain, yet it has no fear;¹⁷ because God has made it forget wisdom,   and given it no share in understanding.¹⁸ When it spreads its plumes aloft,    it laughs at the horse and its rider. ¹⁹ ‘Do you give the horse its might?   Do you clothe its neck with mane?²⁰ Do you make it leap like the locust?   Its majestic snorting is terrible.²¹ It paws violently, exults mightily;   it goes out to meet the weapons.²² It laughs at fear, and is not dismayed;   it does not turn back from the sword.²³ Upon it rattle the quiver,   the flashing spear, and the javelin.²⁴ With fierceness and rage it swallows the ground;   it cannot stand still at the sound of the trumpet.²⁵ When the trumpet sounds, it says “Aha!”   From a distance it smells the battle,   the thunder of the captains, and the shouting. ²⁶ ‘Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars,   and spreads its wings towards the south?²⁷ Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up   and makes its nest on high?²⁸ It lives on the rock and makes its home   in the fastness of the rocky crag.²⁹ From there it spies the prey;   its eyes see it from far away.³⁰ Its young ones suck up blood;   and where the slain are, there it is.’

⁴ These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.

Another Account of the Creation

In the day that the ^Lord God made the earth and the heavens,⁵when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the ^Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground;⁶but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground—⁷then the ^Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.⁸And the ^Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed.⁹Out of the ground the ^Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. ¹⁰ A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches.¹¹The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;¹²and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there.¹³The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Cush.¹⁴The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. ¹⁵ The ^Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.¹⁶And the ^Lord God commanded the man, ‘You may freely eat of every tree of the garden;¹⁷but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.’ ¹⁸ Then the ^Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.’¹⁹So out of the ground the ^Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.²⁰The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner.²¹So the ^Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.²²And the rib that the ^Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.²³Then the man said,‘This at last is bone of my bones   and flesh of my flesh;this one shall be called Woman,    for out of Man this one was taken.’