Isaiah 40:15-24

English Standard Version

¹⁵Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket,
    and are accounted ^(A)as the dust on the scales;
    behold, he takes up ^(B)the coastlands like fine dust.
¹⁶Lebanon would not suffice for fuel,
    nor are ^(C)its beasts enough for a burnt offering.
¹⁷^(D)All the nations are as nothing before him,
    they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.

¹⁸^(E)To whom then will you liken God,
    ^(F)or what likeness compare with him?
¹⁹^(G)An idol! A craftsman casts it,
    and a goldsmith overlays it with gold
    and casts for it silver chains.
²⁰^(H)He who is too impoverished for an offering
    chooses wood^[a] that will not rot;
he seeks out a skillful craftsman
    to set up an idol that will not move.

²¹^(I)Do you not know? Do you not hear?
    Has it not been told you from the beginning?
    Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
²²It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
    and its inhabitants are ^(J)like grasshoppers;
^(K)who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
    and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;
²³^(L)who brings princes to nothing,
    and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.

²⁴Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,
scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,
when he blows on them, and they wither,
^(M)and the tempest carries them off like stubble.

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