No one stops to think. No one has enough knowledge or understanding to say, “I burned half of the wood in the fire. I also baked bread over its coals. I roasted meat and ate it. Now I am making the rest of the wood into a disgusting thing and bowing to a block of wood.”
You call wood your father. You call stone your mother. You’ve turned your backs, not your faces, to me. But when you’re in trouble, you ask me to come and rescue you.
“My people are fools. They don’t know me. They are stupid people. They don’t understand. They are experts in doing wrong, and they don’t know how to do good.”
My people ask their wooden idols for help. A piece of wood tells them what to do. A spirit of prostitution leads them astray. They commit adultery by giving themselves to other gods.
“What benefit is there in a carved idol when its maker has carved it? What benefit is there in a molded statue, a teacher of lies, when its maker has molded it? The one who formed it trusts himself to make worthless idols that cannot speak.
The idols speak lies. The fortunetellers see false visions. They speak about false dreams. They give useless comfort. That is why people wander around like sheep. They are troubled because there is no shepherd.
