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21 and do not turn aside after useless things that cannot profit or save, for they are useless.(A)

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18 What use is an idol
    once its maker has shaped it—
    a cast image, a teacher of lies?
For its maker trusts in what has been made,
    though the product is only an idol that cannot speak!(A)

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19 O Lord, my strength and my stronghold,
    my refuge in the day of trouble,
to you shall the nations come
    from the ends of the earth and say:
“Our ancestors have inherited nothing but lies,
    worthless things in which there is no profit.(A)

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15 They are worthless, a work of delusion;
    at the time of their punishment they shall perish.

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Hence, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “no idol in the world really exists” and that “there is no God but one.”(A)

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22 Can any idols of the nations bring rain,
    or can the heavens give showers?
Is it not you, O Lord our God?
    We set our hope on you,
    for it is you who do all this.(A)

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13 for my people have committed two evils:
    they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living water,
    and dug out cisterns for themselves,
cracked cisterns
    that can hold no water.(A)

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They lift it to their shoulders; they carry it;
    they set it in its place, and it stands there;
    it cannot move from its place.
If one cries out to it, it does not answer
    or save anyone from trouble.(A)

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Idols Cannot Save Babylon

20 Assemble yourselves and come together;
    draw near, you survivors of the nations!
They have no knowledge—
    those who carry about their wooden idols
and keep on praying to a god
    that cannot save.(A)

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16 Take care, or you will be seduced into turning away, serving other gods and worshiping them,(A)

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Those who worship vain idols
    forsake their true loyalty.(A)

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They are both stupid and foolish;
    the instruction given by idols
    is no better than wood![a](A)

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Footnotes

  1. 10.8 Q ms Gk lack 10.6–8

Thus says the Lord:

What wrong did your ancestors find in me
    that they went far from me
and went after worthless things and became worthless themselves?(A)

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The Absurdity of Idol Worship

All who make idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit; their witnesses neither see nor know, and so they will be put to shame.(A) 10 Who would fashion a god or cast an image that can do no good?(B)

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29 No, they are all a delusion;
    their works are nothing;
    their images are empty wind.(A)

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23 Tell us what is to come hereafter,
    that we may know that you are gods;
do good, or do harm,
    that we may be afraid and terrified.(A)
24 You, indeed, are nothing,
    and your work is nothing at all;
    whoever chooses you is an abomination.(B)

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Their idols are silver and gold,
    the work of human hands.(A)
They have mouths, but they do not speak;
    they have eyes, but they do not see.
They have ears, but they do not hear;
    they have noses, but they do not smell.
They have hands, but they do not feel;
    they have feet, but they do not walk;
    they make no sound in their throats.
Those who make them are like them;
    so are all who trust in them.(B)

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21 They made me jealous with what is no god,
    provoked me with their idols.
So I will make them jealous with what is no people,
    provoke them with a foolish nation.(A)

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