Isaiah 44:9-20

The Folly of Idolatry

⁹ Those who fashion a graven image are all of them futile , and their precious things are of no profit ; even their own witnesses fail to see or know , so that they will be put to shame . ¹⁰ Who has fashioned a god or cast an idol to no profit ? ¹¹ Behold , all his companions will be put to shame , for the craftsmen themselves are mere men . Let them all assemble themselves, let them stand up, let them tremble , let them together be put to shame . ¹² The man shapes iron into a cutting tool and does his work over the coals , fashioning it with hammers and working it with his strong arm . He also gets hungry and his strength fails ; he drinks no water and becomes weary . ¹³ Another shapes wood , he extends a measuring line ; he outlines it with red chalk . He works it with planes and outlines it with a compass , and makes it like the form of a man , like the beauty of man , so that it may sit in a house . ¹⁴ Surely he cuts cedars for himself, and takes a cypress or an oak and raises it for himself among the trees of the forest . He plants a fir , and the rain makes it grow . ¹⁵ Then it becomes something for a man to burn , so he takes one of them and warms himself; he also makes a fire to bake bread . He also makes a god and worships it; he makes it a graven image and falls down before it. ¹⁶ Half of it he burns in the fire ; over this half he eats meat as he roasts a roast and is satisfied . He also warms himself and says , "Aha ! I am warm , I have seen the fire ." ¹⁷ But the rest of it he makes into a god , his graven image . He falls down before it and worships ; he also prays to it and says , "Deliver me, for you are my god ." ¹⁸ They do not know , nor do they understand , for He has smeared over their eyes so that they cannot see and their hearts so that they cannot comprehend . ¹⁹ No one recalls e e , nor is there knowledge or understanding to say , "I have burned half of it in the fire and also have baked bread over its coals . I roast meat and eat it. Then I make the rest of it into an abomination , I fall down before a block of wood !" ²⁰ He feeds on ashes ; a deceived heart has turned him aside . And he cannot deliver himself , nor say , " Is there not a lie in my right hand ?"