1Listen, Israel, to these words that the LORD has spoken against you:
2Do not fall into the ways of the nations, do not be terrified by signs in the heavens. It is the nations who go in terror of these.
3For the carved images of the nations are a sham; they are nothing but timber cut from the forest, shaped by a craftsman with his chisel
4and decorated with silver and gold. They are made fast with hammer and nails to keep them from toppling over.
5They are as dumb as a scarecrow in a plot of cucumbers; they have always to be carried, for they cannot walk. Do not be afraid of them: they can do no harm, nor have they any power to do good.
6Where can one be found like you, LORD? You are great, and great is the might of your name.
7Who would not fear you, King of the nations, for fear is a fitting tribute for you? Where among the wisest of the nations and among all their royalty can any be found like you?
8One and all they are stupid and foolish, learning their nonsense from a piece of wood.
9Beaten silver is brought from Tarshish and gold from Ophir; they are the work of craftsmen and goldsmiths; they are draped in violet and purple, all made by skilled workers.
10But the LORD is God in truth, a living God, an everlasting King. The earth quakes under his fury; no nation can endure his wrath.
11You say this of them: The gods who did not make heaven and earth will perish from the earth and from under these heavens.
12God made the earth by his power, fixed the world in place by his wisdom, and by his knowledge unfurled the skies.
13When he speaks in the thunder the waters in the heavens are in tumult; he brings up the mist from the ends of the earth, he opens rifts for the rain, and brings the wind out of his storehouses.
14Everyone is brutish and ignorant; every goldsmith is discredited through his idols; for the figures he casts are a sham, there is no breath in them.
15They are worthless, objects of mockery, which perish when their day of reckoning comes.
16Jacob's chosen God is not like these, for he is the creator of the universe. Israel is the people he claims as his own; the LORD of Hosts is his name.
17Gather up your goods and flee the country, for you are living under siege.
18These are the words of the LORD: This time I shall throw out the whole population of the land, and I shall press them and squeeze them dry.
19Oh, the pain of my wounds! The injuries I suffer are cruel. “I am laid low,” I said, “and must endure it.
20My tent is wrecked, my tent-ropes all severed, my children have left me and are gone, there is no one left to pitch my tent again, no one to put up its curtains.”
21The shepherds of the people are brutish; they never consult the LORD, and so they do not act wisely, and their entire flock is scattered.
22Listen, a rumour comes flying, a great uproar from the land of the north, an army to make Judah's cities desolate, a haunt of wolves.
23I am aware, LORD, that no one's ways are of his own choosing; nor is it within his power to determine his course in life.
24Correct me, LORD, but with justice, not in anger, or you will bring me almost to nothing.
25Pour out your fury on the nations that have not acknowledged you, on tribes that have not invoked you by name; for they have devoured Jacob and made an end of him and have left his home a waste.