18. To whom can you liken God?With what likeness can you confront him?
19. An idol? An artisan casts it,the smith plates it with gold,fits it with silver chains.
20. Is mulberry wood the offering?A skilled artisan picks outa wood that will not rot,Seeks to set up for himselfan idol that will not totter.
21. Do you not know? Have you not heard?Was it not told you from the beginning?Have you not understood from the founding of the earth?
22. The one who is enthroned above the vault of the earth,its inhabitants like grasshoppers,Who stretches out the heavens like a veiland spreads them out like a tent to dwell in,
23. Who brings princes to noughtand makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.
24. Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,scarcely their stem rooted in the earth,When he breathes upon them and they wither,and the stormwind carries them away like straw.
25. To whom can you liken me as an equal?says the Holy One.
26. Lift up your eyes on highand see who created these:He leads out their army and numbers them,calling them all by name.By his great might and the strength of his powernot one of them is missing!
27. Why, O Jacob, do you say,and declare, O Israel,“My way is hidden from the Lord,and my right is disregarded by my God”?
28. Do you not know?Have you not heard?The Lord is God from of old,creator of the ends of the earth.He does not faint or grow weary,and his knowledge is beyond scrutiny.