A reading from the book of Job.

Can you draw out Leviathan with a fish hook or press down his tongue with a cord? Can you put a rope in his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook? Will he make many pleas to you? Will he speak to you soft words? Will he make a covenant with you to take him for your servant forever. Will you play with him as with a bird?

Or will you put him on a leash for your girls? Will traders bargain over him? Will they divide him up

among the merchants? Can you fill his skin with harpoons or his head with fishing spears? Lay your

hands on him. Remember the battle. You will not do it again. Behold, the hope of a man is false. He is laid low even at the

sight of him. No one is so fierce that he dares to stir him up. Who then is he who can stand before me?

Who has first given to me that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine.

I will not keep silence concerning his limbs or his mighty strength or his

goodly frame. Who can strip off his outer garment? Who would come near him with a bridle? Who can

open the doors of his face around his teeth is terror. His back is made of rows of shield,

shut up closely as with a seal. One is so near to another that no air can come between them. They are joined one to

another. They clasped each other and cannot be separated. His sneezings flash forth light,

and his eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn. Out of his mouth go flaming torches, sparks of fire

leap forth. Out of his nostrils comes forth smoke, as from a boiling pot and burning rushes.

His breath kindles coals, and a flame comes forth from his mouth. In his neck abide strength,

and terror dances before him. The folds of his flesh stick together, firmly cast on him in a

movable. His heart is hard as a stone, hard as the lower millstone. When he raises

himself up, the mighty are afraid, at the crashing they are beside themselves. Though the sword

reaches him, it does not avail, nor the spear, the dart or the javelin. He counts iron as straw,

and bronze as rotten wood. The arrow cannot make him flee. For him, slingstones are

turned to stubble. Clubs are counted as stubble. He laughs at the rattle of javelins. His underparts are

like sharp pot shards. He spreads himself like a threshing sledge on the mire. He makes the deep boil

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