Read the Bible

¹ Hear the word that Jehovah speaketh unto you, house of Israel.

² Thus saith Jehovah: Learn not the way of the nations, and be not dismayed at the signs of the heavens; for the nations are dismayed at them.

³ For the statutes of the peoples are vanity; for [it is] a tree cut out of the forest, worked with a chisel by the hands of the artizan;

⁴ they deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.

⁵ They are as a palm-column of turned work, and they speak not; they are carried, for they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.

⁶ There is none like unto thee, Jehovah; thou art great, and thy name is great in might.

⁷ Who would not fear thee, O King of nations? For to thee doth it appertain; for among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their kingdoms, there is none like unto thee.

⁸ But they are one and all senseless and foolish; the teaching of vanities is a stock.

⁹ Silver spread into plates is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the artizan and of the hands of the founder; blue and purple is their clothing: they are all the work of skilful [men].

¹⁰ But Jehovah Elohim is truth; he is the living God, and the King of eternity. At his wrath the earth trembleth, and the nations cannot abide his indignation.

¹¹ Thus shall ye say unto them: The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, these shall perish from the earth, and from under the heavens.

¹² He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his understanding.

¹³ When he uttereth his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, and he causeth the vapours to ascend from the end of the earth; he maketh lightnings for the rain, and bringeth forth the wind out of his treasuries.

¹⁴ Every man is become brutish, bereft of knowledge; every founder is put to shame by the graven image, for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them.

¹⁵ They are vanity, a work of delusion: in the time of their visitation they shall perish.

¹⁶ The portion of Jacob is not like them; for it is he that hath formed all [things], and Israel is the rod of his inheritance: Jehovah of hosts is his name.

¹⁷ Gather up thy baggage out of the land, O inhabitress of the fortress.

¹⁸ For thus saith Jehovah: Behold, I will this time sling out the inhabitants of the land, and will distress them, that they may be found.

¹⁹ Woe is me, for my wound! My stroke is hard to heal, and I had said, Yea, this is [my] grief, and I will bear it.

²⁰ My tent is despoiled, and all my cords are broken; my children are gone forth from me, and they are not; there is none to stretch forth my tent any more, and to set up my curtains.

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

²² The voice of a rumour! Behold, it cometh, and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of Judah a desolation, a dwelling-place of jackals.

²³ I know, Jehovah, that the way of man is not his own; it is not in a man that walketh to direct his steps.

²⁴ Jehovah, correct me, but with judgment; not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing.

²⁵ Pour out thy fury upon the nations that know thee not, and upon the families that call not on thy name; for they have eaten up Jacob, yea, they have eaten him up and consumed him, and have laid waste his dwelling-place.