1.
Hearken to the word that the Lord spoke about you, O house of Israel.
2.
So says the Lord: of the way of the nations you shall not learn, and from the signs of the heaven be not dismayed, for the nations are dismayed from them.
3.
For the statutes of the peoples are vanity, for it is but a stock that one cut from the forest, the handiwork of a carpenter with a small axe.
4.
With silver and gold he beautifies it, with nails and with sledge hammers they strengthen them so that it does not bend.
5.
Like a palm tree they are beaten, and they do not speak; they are carried for they do not step; fear them not for they will do no harm, neither is it in them to do good.
6.
There is none like You, O Lord; You are great, and Your name is great with might.
7.
Who will not fear You, O King of the nations, for it befits You, for among all the wise men of the nations and among all their kingdom there is none like You.
8.
But with one thing they are brutish and foolish, the vanities for which they will be punished are but wood.
9.
Silver beaten into plates is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of a craftsman and the hands of a smith; their raiment is blue and purple, all of them the work of experts.
10.
But the Lord God is true; He is a living God and the King of the world; from His anger the earth quakes, and the nations cannot contain His fury.
11.
So shall you say to them, "The gods who did not make the heavens and the earth, shall perish from the earth and from beneath these heavens.
12.
Who made the earth with His strength, He prepared the world by His wisdom, and with His understanding He stretched out the heavens.
13.
At the sound of His giving a multitude of waters in the heaven, and He brought up clouds from the end of the earth, He made lightning for the rain, and He took wind out of His treasuries.
14.
Every man is brutish without knowledge; every smith is put to shame by his graven image, for his molten images are false, without spirit in them.
15.
They are vanity, a work of delusion; at the time of their visitation they shall perish.
16.
Not like these is Jacob's portion, for He is the One Who formed everything, and Israel is the tribe of His inheritance; the Lord of Hosts is His name."
17.
Gather in from the land your merchandise, you who sit in the fortified cities.
18.
For, so says the Lord: Behold, I will sling the inhabitants of the land this time, and I will bring troubles to them that they may find.
19.
Woe is to me for my hurt, my wound is grievous, and I said, "This is but an illness, and I will bear it."
20.
My tent has been spoiled, and all my cords have been broken; my children have left me and they are not here. No one pitches my tent anymore, or sets up my curtains.
21.
For the shepherds have become brutish, and they did not seek the Lord: therefore, they have not prospered, and all their flocks have been scattered.
22.
Hark! A report, behold it comes, and a great tumult from the northland, to make the cities of Judah a desolation, a lair of jackals.
23.
I know, O Lord, that man's way is not his; neither has the man who goes, to prepare his step.
24.
Chasten me, O Lord, but with a measure, not with Your wrath, lest You diminish me.
25.
Pour out Your wrath upon the nations that do not know You and upon the families that have not called in Your name, for they have devoured Jacob and consumed him and destroyed him, and have wasted his dwelling.
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