They despised his statutes and his covenant that he had made with their ancestors and the warnings that he had given them. They went after false idols and became false; they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the Lord had commanded them that they should not do as they did.
Assemble yourselves and come together; draw near, you survivors of the nations! They have no knowledge— those who carry about their wooden idols and keep on praying to a god that cannot save.
They lift it to their shoulders; they carry it; they set it in its place, and it stands there; it cannot move from its place. If one cries out to it, it does not answer or save anyone from trouble.
Can any idols of the nations bring rain, or can the heavens give showers? Is it not you, O Lord our God? We set our hope on you, for it is you who do all this.
O Lord, my strength and my stronghold, my refuge in the day of trouble, to you shall the nations come from the ends of the earth and say: “Our ancestors have inherited nothing but lies, worthless things in which there is no profit.
for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water.
Thus says the Lord: What wrong did your ancestors find in me that they went far from me and went after worthless things and became worthless themselves?
What use is an idol once its maker has shaped it— a cast image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in what has been made, though the product is only an idol that cannot speak!
“People, why are you doing this? We are mortals just like you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them.
They made me jealous with what is no god, provoked me with their idols. So I will make them jealous with what is no people, provoke them with a foolish nation.