¹ Do you know how mountain goats breed?

Have you observed the hinds in labor,

² numbered the months they must fulfill,

and fixed the time they must give birth?

³ Have you watched them end their labor

as they crouch and drop their young,

⁴ how they wait for them to grow,

until they leave never to return?

⁵ Who has given the wild ass his freedom,

and loosed the bonds of the wild donkey?

⁶ I have given him the desert for a home,

the salt plains for a shelter.

⁷ For he scorns the city’s tumult,

and is free of the driver’s shout and insult;

⁸ he prefers the hills for his pasture,

ranging for food in the rich verdure.

⁹ Is the wild ox willing to serve you,

to pass the night by your manger?

¹⁰ Can you make him work with a plow or harrow

if you provide him with the proper gear?

¹¹ Can you rely on his great strength

and leave him to do your heavy work?

¹² Can you depend on him to come home alone,

carrying your grain to your threshing floor?

¹³ Can the wing of the ostrich be compared

with the plumage of the stork or falcon?

¹⁴ She lays her eggs on the ground

and lets them warm in the sand,

¹⁵ not knowing that a foot may step on them

or some wild beast may crush them.

¹⁶ Cruel to her chicks as if they were not hers,

she cares not that her labor be in vain,

¹⁷ for God has given her no wisdom

nor a share of good sense.

¹⁸ Yet in the swiftness of foot,

she makes sport of horse and rider.

¹⁹ Is it you who give the horse strength

and clothe his neck with splendor,

²⁰ who make him leap like a grasshopper

and his proud snorting strike terror?

²¹ Rejoicing in his strength, he fiercely paws

and charges into the fray,

²² afraid of nothing, laughing at fear,

not shying away from the sword.

²³ Against his side rattles the quiver,

along with the lance and flashing spear.

²⁴ In frenzied excitement he eats up the ground;

there is no holding him when the trumpets sound.

²⁵ He cries “Hurrah!” at each trumpet blast.

He catches the scent of battle from afar,

the shout of commanders and the battle cry.

²⁶ Is it by your wisdom that the hawk takes flight

and spreads his wings toward the south?

²⁷ Is it at your command that eagles fly

and build their nests on high?

²⁸ They dwell on cliffs and spend the night;

their stronghold is the rocky crag.

²⁹ From there they look out for food,

which they detect even from afar.

³⁰ They and their young feast on blood,

and where the slain lie, there they are.