17. All the nations are as nothing before him,they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.
18. To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him?
19. An idol! A craftsman casts it,and a goldsmith overlays it with goldand casts for it silver chains.
20. He who is too impoverished for an offeringchooses wood that will not rot;he seeks out a skillful craftsmanto set up an idol that will not move.
21. Do you not know? Do you not hear?Has it not been told you from the beginning?Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
22. It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;
23. who brings princes to nothing,and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.
24. Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,when he blows on them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble.
25. To whom then will you compare me,that I should be like him? says the Holy One.
26. Lift up your eyes on high and see:who created these? He who brings out their host by number,calling them all by name,by the greatness of his might,and because he is strong in powernot one is missing.
27. Why do you say, O Jacob,and speak, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God”?
28. Have you not known? Have you not heard?The Lord is the everlasting God,the Creator of the ends of the earth.He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.
29. He gives power to the faint,and to him who has no might he increases strength.
30. Even youths shall faint and be weary,and young men shall fall exhausted;