50 Or “of what value.”
51 Heb “so that the one who forms it fashions it?” Here כִּי (ki) is taken as resultative after the rhetorical question. For other examples of this use, see R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 73, §450.
52 Heb “or a metal image, a teacher of lies.” The words “What good is” in the translation are supplied from the previous parallel line. “Teacher of lies” refers to the false oracles that the so-called god would deliver through a priest. See J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (), 126.
53 Heb “so that the one who forms his image trusts in it?” As earlier in the verse, כִּי (ki) is resultative.
54 Heb “to make.”

In other versions

“What profit is an idol

when its maker has shaped it,

a metal image, a teacher of lies?

For its maker trusts in his own creation

when he makes speechless idols!

“Of what value is an idol carved by a craftsman?

Or an image that teaches lies?

For the one who makes it trusts in his own creation;

he makes idols that cannot speak.

What use is a carved idol

after its craftsman carves it?

It is only a cast image, a teacher of lies.

For the one who crafts its shape trusts in it

and makes worthless idols that cannot speak.

“What good is an idol carved by man,

or a cast image that deceives you?

How foolish to trust in your own creation—

a god that can’t even talk!

What value is an idol

when its carver has fashioned it,

a molten idol, a teacher of lies?

For he who fashioned his creation trusts in it,

though making mute idols!

What profiteth the graven image that the maker thereof hath graven it;

The molten image, and a teacher of lies,

That the maker of his work trusteth therein, to make dumb idols?

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