¹²Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand

and marked off the heavens with a span,

enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure

and weighed the mountains in scales

and the hills in a balance?

¹³Who has measured7 the Spirit of the Lord,

or what man shows him his counsel?

¹⁴Whom did he consult,

and who made him understand?

Who taught him the path of justice,

and taught him knowledge,

and showed him the way of understanding?

¹⁵Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket,

and are accounted as the dust on the scales;

behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust.

¹⁶Lebanon would not suffice for fuel,

nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering.

¹⁷All the nations are as nothing before him,

they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.

¹⁸To whom then will you liken God,

or what likeness compare with him?

¹⁹An idol! A craftsman casts it,

and a goldsmith overlays it with gold

and casts for it silver chains.

²⁰He who is too impoverished for an offering

chooses wood8 that will not rot;

he seeks out a skillful craftsman

to set up an idol that will not move.

²¹Do 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?

²²It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,

and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;

who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,

and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;

²³who brings princes to nothing,

and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.

²⁴Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,

scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,

when he blows on them, and they wither,

and the tempest carries them off like stubble.

²⁵To whom then will you compare me,

that I should be like him? says the Holy One.

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