Isaiah 41:29

Unless Yahweh builds the house, they who build it labor in vain. Unless Yahweh watches over the city, the watchman guards it in vain.

Let the favor of the Lord our God be on us. Establish the work of our hands for us. Yes, establish the work of our hands.

“You shall not make for yourselves an idol, nor any image of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:

Therefore the showers have been withheld and there has been no latter rain; yet you have had a prostitute’s forehead and you refused to be ashamed.

Does the rain have a father? Or who fathers the drops of dew?

They will say of me, ‘There is righteousness and strength only in Yahweh.’ ” Even to him will men come. All those who raged against him will be disappointed.

He will say, “Build up, build up, prepare the way! Remove the stumbling-block out of the way of my people.”

Yahweh says, “Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, ‘Where is the good way?’ and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’

I am the vine. You are the branches. He who remains in me and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God. They have provoked me to anger with their vanities. I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people. I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.

Those who make them will be like them; yes, everyone who trusts in them.

He will give the rain for your seed, with which you will sow the ground; and bread of the increase of the ground will be rich and plentiful. In that day, your livestock will feed in large pastures.

The priests didn’t say, ‘Where is Yahweh?’ and those who handle the law didn’t know me. The rulers also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal and followed things that do not profit.

Has a nation changed its gods, which really are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for that which doesn’t profit.

“Can a virgin forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet my people have forgotten me for days without number.

They are like a palm tree, of turned work, and don’t speak. They must be carried, because they can’t move. Don’t be afraid of them; for they can’t do evil, neither is it in them to do good.”

Yahweh, my strength, and my stronghold, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the nations will come to you from the ends of the earth, and will say, “Our fathers have inherited nothing but lies, vanity and things in which there is no profit.

Should a man make to himself gods which yet are no gods?”

They called to them, so they went from them. They sacrificed to the Baals, and burned incense to engraved images.

But you have turned away from the path. You have caused many to stumble in the law. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi,” says Yahweh of Armies.

“Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to the living God, who made the sky, the earth, the sea, and all that is in them;

Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that no idol is anything in the world, and that there is no other God but one.

For if a man thinks himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.

When he again brings in the firstborn into the world he says, “Let all the angels of God worship him.”

But if you indeed listen to his voice, and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies, and an adversary to your adversaries.

sow fields, plant vineyards, and reap the fruits of increase.

He causes the clouds to rise from the ends of the earth. He makes lightnings with the rain. He brings the wind out of his treasuries.

Behold, you are nothing, and your work is nothing. He who chooses you is an abomination.

“Those who trust in engraved images, who tell molten images, ‘You are our gods,’ will be turned back. They will be utterly disappointed.

They will be disappointed, yes, confounded, all of them. Those who are makers of idols will go into confusion together.

Israel was holiness to Yahweh, the first fruits of his increase. All who devour him will be held guilty. Evil will come on them,” ’ says Yahweh.”

“For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the spring of living waters, and cut out cisterns for themselves: broken cisterns that can’t hold water.

“For my people are foolish. They don’t know me. They are foolish children, and they have no understanding. They are skillful in doing evil, but they don’t know how to do good.”

The prophets will become wind, and the word is not in them. Thus it will be done to them.”

They don’t say in their heart, ‘Let’s now fear Yahweh our God, who gives rain, both the former and the latter, in its season, who preserves to us the appointed weeks of the harvest.’

“You shall say this to them: ‘The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth will perish from the earth, and from under the heavens.’ ”

Every man has become brutish and without knowledge. Every goldsmith is disappointed by his engraved image; for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them.

Therefore Yahweh says concerning the prophets who prophesy in my name, but I didn’t send them, yet they say, ‘Sword and famine will not be in this land.’ Those prophets will be consumed by sword and famine.

They are vanity, a work of delusion. In the time of their visitation, they will perish.

He will also carry their gods, with their molten images, and with their goodly vessels of silver and of gold, captive into Egypt. He will refrain some years from the king of the north.

The days of visitation have come. The days of reckoning have come. Israel will consider the prophet to be a fool, and the man who is inspired to be insane, because of the abundance of your sins, and because your hostility is great.

For the teraphim have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie; and they have told false dreams. They comfort in vain. Therefore they go their way like sheep. They are oppressed, because there is no shepherd.

You see and hear that not at Ephesus alone, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away many people, saying that they are no gods that are made with hands.

who exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

Yahweh will open to you his good treasure in the sky, to give the rain of your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand. You will lend to many nations, and you will not borrow.

for all the sins of Baasha, and the sins of Elah his son, which they sinned, and with which they made Israel to sin, to provoke Yahweh, the God of Israel, to anger with their vanities.

I wait for Yahweh. My soul waits. I hope in his word.

Everyone who makes a carved image is vain. The things that they delight in will not profit. Their own witnesses don’t see, nor know, that they may be disappointed.

Behold, all his fellows will be disappointed; and the workmen are mere men. Let them all be gathered together. Let them stand up. They will fear. They will be put to shame together.

They don’t know, neither do they consider: for he has shut their eyes, that they can’t see; and their hearts, that they can’t understand.

They bear it on their shoulder. They carry it, and set it in its place, and it stands there. It cannot move from its place. Yes, one may cry to it, yet it can not answer. It cannot save him out of his trouble.

No weapon that is formed against you will prevail; and you will condemn every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the heritage of Yahweh’s servants, and their righteousness is of me,” says Yahweh.

Yahweh says, “What unrighteousness have your fathers found in me, that they have gone far from me, and have walked after worthless vanity, and have become worthless?

Because she took her prostitution lightly, the land was polluted, and she committed adultery with stones and with wood.

Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed. They couldn’t blush. Therefore they will fall among those who fall. In the time of their visitation they will be cast down, says Yahweh.

Behold, the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people from a land that is very far off: “Isn’t Yahweh in Zion? Isn’t her King in her?” “Why have they provoked me to anger with their engraved images, and with foreign idols?”

For the customs of the peoples are vanity; for one cuts a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman with the ax.

But they are together brutish and foolish, instructed by idols! It is just wood.

For the shepherds have become brutish, and have not inquired of Yahweh. Therefore they have not prospered, and all their flocks have scattered.

Then I said, “Ah, Lord Yahweh! Behold, the prophets tell them, ‘You will not see the sword, neither will you have famine; but I will give you assured peace in this place.’ ”

Are there any among the vanities of the nations that can cause rain? Or can the sky give showers? Aren’t you he, Yahweh our God? Therefore we will wait for you; for you have made all these things.

For my people have forgotten me. They have burned incense to false gods. They have been made to stumble in their ways, in the ancient paths, to walk in byways, in a way not built up,

All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; and he does according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; and no one can stop his hand, or ask him, “What are you doing?”

Those who regard lying vanities forsake their own mercy.

It will happen in that day, that I will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all the peoples. All who burden themselves with it will be severely wounded, and all the nations of the earth will be gathered together against it.

It will come to pass in that day, says Yahweh of Armies, that I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they will be remembered no more. I will also cause the prophets and the spirit of impurity to pass out of the land.

Remind them of these things, charging them in the sight of the Lord, that they don’t argue about words, to no profit, to the subverting of those who hear.

Don’t turn away to go after vain things which can’t profit or deliver, for they are vain.

Let all them be shamed who serve engraved images, who boast in their idols. Worship him, all you gods!

and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were no gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone; therefore they have destroyed them.

Behold, all those who are incensed against you will be disappointed and confounded. Those who strive with you will be like nothing, and shall perish.

Who has fashioned a god, or molds an image that is profitable for nothing?

They are vanity, a work of delusion. In the time of their visitation they will perish.

“What value does the engraved image have, that its maker has engraved it; the molten image, even the teacher of lies, that he who fashions its form trusts in it, to make mute idols?

So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.

What am I saying then? That a thing sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything?