Isaiah 40:18-31
Holman Christian Standard Bible
18 Who will you compare God with?
What likeness will you compare Him to?(A)
19 To an idol?—something that a smelter casts,
and a metalworker plates with gold
and makes silver welds for it?(B)
20 To one who shapes a pedestal,
choosing wood that does not rot?[a]
He looks for a skilled craftsman
to set up an idol that will not fall over.(C)
21 Do you not know?(D)
Have you not heard?
Has it not been declared to you
from the beginning?
Have you not considered
the foundations of the earth?(E)
22 God is enthroned above the circle of the earth;
its inhabitants are like grasshoppers.(F)
He stretches out the heavens like thin cloth(G)
and spreads them out like a tent to live in.(H)
23 He reduces princes to nothing(I)
and makes judges of the earth irrational.
24 They are barely planted, barely sown,
their stem hardly takes root in the ground
when He blows on them and they wither,
and a whirlwind carries them away like stubble.(J)
25 “Who will you compare Me to,(K)
or who is My equal?” asks the Holy One.
26 Look up[b] and see:
who created(L) these?
He brings out the starry host by number;
He calls all of them by name.(M)
Because of His great power and strength,
not one of them is missing.
27 Jacob, why do you say,
and Israel, why do you assert:
“My way is hidden from the Lord,
and my claim is ignored by my God”?(N)
28 Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
Yahweh is the everlasting God,(O)
the Creator of the whole earth.
He never grows faint or weary;
there is no limit to His understanding.(P)
29 He gives strength to the weary
and strengthens the powerless.
30 Youths may faint and grow weary,
and young men stumble and fall,
31 but those who trust in the Lord
will renew their strength;(Q)
they will soar on wings like eagles;(R)
they will run and not grow weary;
they will walk and not faint.
Footnotes
- Isaiah 40:20 Or who is too poor for such an offering, or who chooses mulberry wood as a votive gift; Hb obscure
- Isaiah 40:26 Lit Lift up your eyes on high
Isaiah 46:1-7
Holman Christian Standard Bible
There is No One Like God
46 Bel crouches; Nebo cowers.(A)
Their idols are consigned to beasts and cattle.
The images you carry are loaded,
as a burden for the weary animal.
2 The gods cower; they crouch together;
they are not able to rescue the burden,
but they themselves go into captivity.(B)
3 “Listen to Me, house of Jacob,
all the remnant of the house of Israel,
who have been sustained from the womb,
carried along since birth.
4 I will be the same until your old age,(C)
and I will bear you up when you turn gray.
I have made you, and I will carry you;
I will bear and save you.
5 “Who will you compare Me or make Me equal to?
Who will you measure Me with,
so that we should be like each other?(D)
6 Those who pour out their bags of gold
and weigh out silver on scales—
they hire a goldsmith and he makes it into a god.
Then they kneel and bow down to it.(E)
7 They lift it to their shoulder and bear it along;(F)
they set it in its place, and there it stands;
it does not budge from its place.(G)
They cry out to it but it doesn’t answer;
it saves no one from his trouble.
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