Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

⁹ But whoever does make an idol is not improved or enriched. On the contrary, their passing fancies contribute nothing of value or purpose. Those who look on at such misplaced attention don’t understand what they’re seeing, and the idol-makers will end up embarrassed at best. ¹⁰ It’s easy to say, “What pathetic idiocy! Who would do such a thing—make gods that are by definition worthless?” ¹¹ The people who worship them will be shamed and humiliated. After all, people made those gods. Yet it happens all the time. So, let’s put these images, these figurines all together; stand them up—they will tremble with terror and be ashamed.

¹² A metalworker shapes the raw materials into tools and then uses them to make little gods by hammering, bending, heating, and cooling the materials. And in the process, he gets tired and hungry; without water he soon grows faint. ¹³ Likewise, the woodworker measures and marks the wood, chisels and planes it down, marks it with a compass, and carves it until it looks a bit like a human—lovely, maybe—in order to put it in a house. ¹⁴ To take it back a bit further, perhaps he cuts down cedars or he carefully selects the cypress or oak himself, watches it, nurtures it until it is ready for his purpose. Perhaps he plants a pine; with sun and rain, it grows tall. ¹⁵ When it’s time to harvest, he uses some of the wood for fuel to stay warm, some to heat the oven and bake bread, and some to craft a god. Then the woodworker bows down and worships before the image he just made. ^16-17 Do you see the irony? He sits around, warming himself and roasting dinner with wood from the same tree from which he crafted a god to which he bows and worships and prays—one time saying, “I am warmed by the wood fire”; another time saying, “O dear god, save me.”

¹³ Remember when God made His promise to Abraham? He had to swear by Himself, there being no one greater: ¹⁴ “Surely I will bless you and multiply your descendants.”^{[a] 15} And after Abraham had endured with patience, he obtained the promise he had hoped for. ¹⁶ When swearing an oath to confirm what they are saying, humans swear by someone greater than themselves and so bring their arguments to an end. ¹⁷ In the same way, when God wanted to confirm His promise as true and unchangeable, He swore an oath to the heirs of that promise. ¹⁸ So God has given us two unchanging things: His promise and His oath. These prove that it is impossible for God to lie. As a result, we who come to God for refuge might be encouraged to seize that hope that is set before us. ¹⁹ That hope is real and true, an anchor to steady our restless souls, a hope that leads us back behind the curtain to where God is (as the high priests did in the days when reconciliation flowed from sacrifices in the temple) ²⁰ and back into the place where Jesus, who went ahead on our behalf, has entered since He has become a High Priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.