Isaiah 40:12-24

New Living Translation

The Lord Has No Equal

¹²Who else has held the oceans in his hand?
    Who has measured off the heavens with his fingers?
Who else knows the weight of the earth
    or has weighed the mountains and hills on a scale?
¹³Who is able to advise the Spirit of the Lord?^[a]
    Who knows enough to give him advice or teach him?
¹⁴Has the Lord ever needed anyone’s advice?
    Does he need instruction about what is good?
Did someone teach him what is right
    or show him the path of justice?

¹⁵No, for all the nations of the world
    are but a drop in the bucket.
They are nothing more
    than dust on the scales.
He picks up the whole earth
    as though it were a grain of sand.
¹⁶All the wood in Lebanon’s forests
    and all Lebanon’s animals would not be enough
    to make a burnt offering worthy of our God.
¹⁷The nations of the world are worth nothing to him.
    In his eyes they count for less than nothing—
    mere emptiness and froth.

¹⁸To whom can you compare God?
    What image can you find to resemble him?
¹⁹Can he be compared to an idol formed in a mold,
    overlaid with gold, and decorated with silver chains?
²⁰Or if people are too poor for that,
    they might at least choose wood that won’t decay
and a skilled craftsman
    to carve an image that won’t fall down!

²¹Haven’t you heard? Don’t you understand?
    Are you deaf to the words of God—
the words he gave before the world began?
    Are you so ignorant?
²²God sits above the circle of the earth.
    The people below seem like grasshoppers to him!
He spreads out the heavens like a curtain
    and makes his tent from them.
²³He judges the great people of the world
    and brings them all to nothing.
²⁴They hardly get started, barely taking root,
    when he blows on them and they wither.
    The wind carries them off like chaff.