^18 (A)To whom then will you liken God,
    ^(B)or what likeness compare with him?
^19 (C)An idol! A craftsman casts it,
    and a goldsmith overlays it with gold
    and casts for it silver chains.
^20 (D)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 (E)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?
²² It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
    and its inhabitants are ^(F)like grasshoppers;
^(G)who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
    and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;
^23 (H)who brings princes to nothing,
    and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.

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

^25 (J)To whom then will you compare me,
    that I should be like him? says the Holy One.