Yahweh, Yisra’el’s King, has said this,
your restorer, Yahweh of Armies:
‘I am first and I am last;
apart from me there is no God.
Who is like me? – he must call out,
tell and lay it out for me.
Who let people hear of coming events from of old?
– they must tell us what will happen.
Don’t fear or take fright,
I let you hear of it in time past, and told of it, didn’t I?
And you’re my witnesses: is there a God apart from me?
– but there is no Rock, I don’t acknowledge one.’

People who form an image – all of them are emptiness,
and the objects of their delight are no use.
They are their witnesses – they don’t see and they don’t acknowledge,
in order that they may be shamed.
Who forms a god or casts an image
so that it may be of no use?
There, all his associates will be shamed;
craftworkers are but human.
If all of them collect together and stand up,
they’ll be afraid, shamed, together.
A craftworker in metal with a cutter
works in the fire.
He forms it with hammers,
works it with his energetic arm.
Should he get hungry, he’d have no energy;
should he not drink water, he’d be faint.
A craftworker in wood stretches a line,
outlines it with a chalk.
He makes it with squares,
outlines it with a compass.
He makes it in the image of a person,
with the majesty of a human being, to live at home.
In cutting himself cedars,
getting ilex or oak,
He secures it for himself among the trees of the forest,
plants a pine so the rain may make it grow,

So it may be fuel for someone,
and he takes some of them and gets warm.
He both lights it and bakes bread,
and also makes a god and bows down to it.
He makes an image and prostrates himself to it,
while half of it he burns in the middle of the fire.
Over the half of it he eats meat,
he makes a roast and is full.
He also gets warm and says,
‘Ah, I’m warm, I see a flame.’
The remainder of it he makes into a god, into his image,
to which he will kneel down and bow low.
He will plead with it and say,
‘Rescue me, because you’re my god.’
They don’t acknowledge,
they don’t understand,
Because their eyes are smeared so they don’t see,
their minds so they don’t discern.
He doesn’t bring back to his mind,
there’s no knowledge nor understanding to say,
‘Half of it I burned in the middle of the fire,
also I baked bread on the coals.
I roasted meat and ate,
and the rest of it I’ll make into an offence.
I’ll kneel down to a lump of wood’ –
feeder on earth!
A deluded mind has directed him,
and he can’t rescue himself.
He can’t say,
‘Isn’t it a falsehood in my hand?’

Be mindful of these things, Ya’aqob,
Yisra’el, because you’re my servant.
I formed you as a servant, you’re mine;
Yisra’el, there is to be no forgetting.
I’m wiping away your rebellions like a cloud,
your wrongdoings like a thundercloud.
Turn back to me,
because I’m restoring you.

Resound, heavens, because Yahweh has acted;
shout, depths of the earth.
Break out in sound, mountains,
forest and every tree in it.
Because Yahweh is restoring Ya’aqob,
and will show his majesty in Yisra’el.

Goldingay, John; Goldingay, John; Wright, Tom; Wright, Tom. The Bible for Everyone . SPCK. Kindle Edition.