¹Hear the word that Yahweh has spoken concerning you, O house of Israel.

²Thus Yahweh says: Do not learn the way of the nations, and do not be dismayed by the signs of the skies, though the nations are dismayed by them.

³For the statutes of the peoples are vapor; for it is a tree from the forest that someone cut down, the work of the hands of an artisan with the axe.

⁴With silver and with gold one makes it beautiful; with nails and with hammers they make them firm, that it may not totter.

⁵Like a palm post in a cucumber field are they, and they do not speak; they must be carried, for they cannot walk. Do not be afraid of them, for they do not do harm, and also doing good is not in them.

⁶There is none like you, Yahweh; great are you, and great is your name in might.

⁷Who would not fear you, king of the nations? For it is fitting for you; for among all the wise of the nations, and in all their kingdom, there is none like you.

⁸And in one thing they are brutish and foolish: the discipline of vapors is wood itself.

⁹Beaten silver is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of an artisan and of the hands of a refiner; violet and purple are their clothing, all of them the work of the wise.

¹⁰But Yahweh is God and reliable; he is God of life and king forever. At his wrath the land shakes, and the nations cannot endure his indignation.

¹¹Thus you will say to them: The gods who did not make the skies and the land will perish from the land and from under these skies.

¹²He who made the land by his power, who established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding stretched out the skies.

¹³When he gives his voice, there is a roar of waters in the skies, and he brings up mists from the end of the land; he makes lightnings for the rain, and brings out the wind from his storehouses.

¹⁴Every person is brutish, without knowledge; every smelter is put to shame by the idol; for his molten image is deception, and there is no breath in them.

¹⁵Vapor are they, a work of mockery; at the time of their visitation they will perish

¹⁶Not like these is the portion of Jacob; for he is the one who formed everything, and Israel is the tribe of his inheritance; Yahweh of hosts is his name.

¹⁷Gather up your bundle from the land, you who dwell in the siege.

¹⁸For thus Yahweh says: Behold, I am about to sling out those who dwell in the land at this time, and I will bring distress upon them, so that they may find it.

¹⁹Woe to me for my breaking! My wound is grievous. And I said, Surely this is a sickness, and I must bear it.

²⁰My tent is devastated, and all my tent cords are snapped; my sons have gone out from me, and they are no more; there is no one to pitch my tent again and to raise up my curtains.

²¹For the shepherds have become brutish, and have not sought Yahweh; therefore they have not acted wisely, and all their flock is scattered.

²²The sound of a report! Behold, it is coming, and a great quaking from the land of the north, to make the cities of Judah a wasteland, a dwelling place of jackals.

²³I know, Yahweh, that a person's way does not belong to him; nor does it belong to a man who walks, to direct his step.

²⁴Discipline me, Yahweh, only in justice, not in your anger, lest you make me few.

²⁵Pour out your burning anger on the nations that do not know you, and on the clans that do not call on your name; for they have eaten Jacob, they have eaten him and finished him, and have devastated his dwelling.