113 Halleluyah!

Servants of Adonai, give praise!
Give praise to the name of Adonai!
² Blessed be the name of Adonai
from this moment on and forever!
³ From sunrise until sunset
Adonai’s name is to be praised.
⁴ Adonai is high above all nations,
his glory above the heavens.
⁵ Who is like Adonai our God,
seated in the heights,
⁶ humbling himself to look
on heaven and on earth.

⁷ He raises the poor from the dust,
lifts the needy from the rubbish heap,
⁸ in order to give him a place among princes,
among the princes of his people.

⁹ He causes the childless woman
to live at home happily as a mother of children.

Halleluyah!

⁶ Thus says Adonai, Isra’el’s King
and Redeemer, Adonai-Tzva’ot:
“I am the first, and I am the last;
besides me there is no God.
⁷ Who is like me? Let him speak out!
Let him show me clearly what has been happening
since I set up the eternal people;
let him foretell future signs and events.
⁸ Don’t be frightened, don’t be afraid —
Didn’t I tell you this long ago?
I foretold it, and you are my witnesses.
Is there any God besides me?
There is no other Rock — I know of none.”

⁹ All idol-makers amount to nothing;
their precious productions profit no one;
and their witnesses, to their own shame,
neither see nor understand.
¹⁰ Who would fashion a god or cast an image
that profits no one anything?
¹¹ All involved will be ashamed,
but more than anyone else, the people who made them.
Let them all be assembled, let them stand up;
let them fear and be shamed together.

¹² A blacksmith makes a tool over burning coals;
with his strong arm he shapes it with hammers.
But when he gets hungry, his strength fails;
if he doesn’t drink water, he grows tired.

¹³ A carpenter takes his measurements,
sketches the shape with a stylus,
planes the wood, checks it with calipers,
and carves it into the shape of a man;
and, since it is honored like a man,
of course it has to live in a house.
¹⁴ He goes to chop down cedars;
he takes an evergreen and an oak;
he especially tends one tree in the forest,
plants a pine for the rain to nourish.
¹⁵ In time, when it’s ready for use as fuel,
he takes some of it to keep himself warm
and burns some more to bake bread.
Then he makes a god and worships it,
carves it into an idol and falls down before it.
¹⁶ So half of it he burns in the fire;
with that half he roasts meat and eats his fill;
he warms himself; says, “It feels so good,
getting warm while watching the flames!”
¹⁷ With the rest of the log he fashions a god,
a carved image, then falls down before it;
he worships it and prays to it.
“Save me,” he says, “for you are my god!”

¹⁸ Such people know nothing, understand nothing.
Their eyes are sealed shut, so that they can’t see;
their hearts too, so they can’t understand.
¹⁹ Not one thinks to himself or has the knowledge
or the discernment to say,
“I burned half of it in the fire,
baked bread on its coals, roasted meat and ate it.
Should I now make the rest an abomination?
Should I prostrate myself to a tree trunk?”
²⁰ He is relying on ashes!
A deceived heart has led him astray;
so that now he won’t save himself, just won’t say,
“This thing in my hand is a fraud!”