1. Hear the word which יהוה speaks to you, O house of Yisra’ĕl.
2. Thus said יהוה, “Do not learn the way of the gentiles, and do not be awed by the signs of the heavens, for the gentiles are awed by them.
3. “For the prescribed customs of these peoples are worthless, for one cuts a tree from the forest, work for the hands of a craftsman with a cutting tool.
4. “They adorn it with silver and gold, they fasten it with nails and hammers so that it does not topple.
5. “They are like a rounded post, and they do not speak. They have to be carried, because they do not walk. Do not be afraid of them, for they do no evil, nor is it in them to do any good.”
6. There is none like You, O יהוה. You are great, and great is Your Name in might.
7. Who would not fear You, O Sovereign of the nations? For this is Your due, for among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their reigns, there is none like You.
8. They are both brutish and foolish, an instruction of worthlessness is the tree.
9. Silver is beaten into plates; it is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the craftsman and of the hands of the smith; draped in blue and purple; all of them are the work of skilled ones.
10. But יהוה is truly Elohim. He is the living Elohim and the everlasting Sovereign. At His wrath the earth shakes, and nations are unable to stand His displeasure.
11. Say to them this, “The elah that did not make the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under these heavens.”
12. He has made the earth by His power, He has established the world by His wisdom, and has stretched out the heavens by His understanding.
13. When He makes His voice heard, there is a roaring of waters in the heavens. And He makes vapours rise from the ends of the earth. The lightnings for rain He has made, and brings wind from His treasuries.