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 directed the spirit of the Lord,
   or as his counsellor has instructed him?
¹⁴Whom did he consult for his enlightenment,
   and who taught him the path of justice?
Who taught him knowledge,
   and showed him the way of understanding?
¹⁵Even the nations are like a drop from a bucket,
   and are accounted as dust on the scales;
   see, he takes up the isles like fine dust.
¹⁶Lebanon would not provide fuel enough,
   nor are its animals 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 workman casts it,
   and a goldsmith overlays it with gold,
   and casts for it silver chains.
²⁰As a gift one chooses mulberry wood^*
   —wood that will not rot—
then seeks out a skilled artisan
   to set up an image that will not topple.

²¹Have 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?
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 live in;
²³who brings princes to naught,
   and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.