18 With whom will you compare God?

What likeness will you set up for comparison with him?o

19 An idol?—something that a smelter casts

and a metalworker plates with gold

and makes silver chains for?p

20 A poor person contributes wood for a pedestal

that will not rot.D

He looks for a skilled craftsman

to set up an idol that will not fall over.q

21 Do you not know?r

Have you not heard?

Has it not been declared to you

from the beginning?

Have you not considered

the foundations of the earth?s

22 God is enthroned above the circle of the earth;

its inhabitants are like grasshoppers.t

He stretches out the heavens like thin clothu

and spreads them out like a tent to live in.v

23 He reduces princes to nothingw

and makes judges of the earth like a wasteland.

24 They are barely planted, barely sown,

their stem hardly takes root in the ground

when he blows on them and they wither,

and a whirlwind carries them away like stubble.x

25 “To whom will you compare me,y

or who is my equal?” asks the Holy One.