“Do you know when the mountain goats give birth?
Do you observe the calving of the deer?

Can you number the months that they fulfil,
and do you know the time when they give birth,

when they crouch to give birth to their offspring,
and are delivered of their young?

Their young ones become strong, they grow up in the open;
they go forth, and do not return to them.

“Who has let the wild ass go free?
Who has loosed the bonds of the swift ass,

to which I have given the steppe for its home,
the salt land for its dwelling-place?

It scorns the tumult of the city;
it does not hear the shouts of the driver.

It ranges the mountains as its pasture,
and it searches after every green thing.

“Is the wild ox willing to serve you?
Will it spend the night at your crib?

Can you tie it in the furrow with ropes,
or will it harrow the valleys after you?

Will you depend on it because its strength is great,
and will you hand over your labour to it?

Do you have faith in it that it will return,
and bring your grain to your threshing-floor?

“The ostrich’s wings flap wildly,
though its pinions lack plumage.

For it leaves its eggs to the earth,
and lets them be warmed on the ground,

forgetting that a foot may crush them,
and that a wild animal may trample them.

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;

because God has made it forget wisdom,
and given it no share in understanding.

When it spreads its plumes aloft,
it laughs at the horse and its rider.”