Isaiah 40:18-25

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

¹⁸ To whom, then, will you liken God,
    or what likeness compare with him?^(A)
19 An idol? A workman casts it,
    and a goldsmith overlays it with gold
    and casts for it silver chains.^(B)
20 As a gift one chooses mulberry wood^[a]
    —wood that will not rot—
then seeks out a skilled artisan
    to set up an image that will not topple.^(C)

²¹ Have you not known? Have you not heard?
    Has it not been told you from the beginning?
    Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?^(D)
22 It 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 live in,^(E)
23 who brings princes to naught
    and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.^(F)

²⁴ Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,
    scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,
when he blows upon them, and they wither,
    and the tempest carries them off like stubble.^(G)

²⁵ To whom, then, will you compare me,
    or who is my equal? says the Holy One.^(H)