16An ostrich leaves her little babies. She treats them as if they were not her own. If her babies die, she does not care that all her work was for nothing.
17That’s because I did not give wisdom to the ostrich. She is foolish, and I made her that way.
18But when the ostrich gets up to run, she laughs at the horse and its rider, because she can run faster than any horse.
19“Did you give the horse its strength? Did you put the mane[1] on its neck?
20Did you make it able to jump like a locust or snort[2] so loudly that it scares people?
21A horse is happy to be so strong. It scratches the ground with its foot and runs into battle.
22It laughs at fear; nothing makes it afraid! It does not run away from battle.
23The soldier’s quiver shakes on the horse’s side. The spear and weapons its rider carries shine in the sun.
24The horse gets very excited and races over the ground.[3] When it hears the trumpet blow, it cannot stand still.
25When the trumpet sounds, it snorts, ‘Hurray!’ It can smell the battle from far away and hear the shouts of commanders with all the other sounds of battle.
26“Did you teach the hawk how to spread its wings and fly south[4]?
27Are you the one who told the eagle[5] to fly high into the sky? Did you tell it to build its nest high in the mountains?
28It lives high on a peak at the top of a cliff. That is its fortress.
29From there it looks far into the distance, searching for its food.
30The eagles gather around dead bodies, and their young eat the blood.”
