⁹ Everyone who makes a carved image is vain.
    The things that they delight in will not profit.
    Their own witnesses don’t see, nor know, that they may be disappointed.
¹⁰ Who has fashioned a god,
    or molds an image that is profitable for nothing?
¹¹ Behold, all his fellows will be disappointed;
    and the workmen are mere men.
Let them all be gathered together.
    Let them stand up.
    They will fear.
    They will be put to shame together.

¹² The blacksmith takes an ax,
    works in the coals,
    fashions it with hammers,
    and works it with his strong arm.
He is hungry,
    and his strength fails;
he drinks no water,
    and is faint.
¹³ The carpenter stretches out a line.
    He marks it out with a pencil.
    He shapes it with planes.
    He marks it out with compasses,
    and shapes it like the figure of a man,
    with the beauty of a man,
    to reside in a house.
¹⁴ He cuts down cedars for himself,
    and takes the cypress and the oak,
    and strengthens for himself one among the trees of the forest.
He plants a cypress tree,
    and the rain nourishes it.
¹⁵ Then it will be for a man to burn;
    and he takes some of it, and warms himself.
    Yes, he burns it, and bakes bread.
Yes, he makes a god, and worships it;
    he makes it a carved image, and falls down to it.
¹⁶ He burns part of it in the fire.
    With part of it, he eats meat.
    He roasts a roast, and is satisfied.
Yes, he warms himself,
    and says, “Aha! I am warm. I have seen the fire.”
¹⁷ The rest of it he makes into a god,
    even his engraved image.
He bows down to it and worships,
    and prays to it, and says, “Deliver me; for you are my god!”

¹⁸ They don’t know, neither do they consider:
    for he has shut their eyes, that they can’t see;
    and their hearts, that they can’t understand.
¹⁹ No one thinks,
    neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say,
    “I have burned part of it in the fire.
    Yes, I have also baked bread on its coals.
    I have roasted meat and eaten it.
    Shall I make the rest of it into an abomination?
    Shall I bow down to a tree trunk?”
²⁰ He feeds on ashes.
    A deceived heart has turned him aside;
    and he can’t deliver his soul,
    nor say, “Isn’t there a lie in my right hand?”