So the sovereign took counsel and made two calves of gold, and said to the people, “It is too much for you to go up to Yerushalayim. See, your mighty ones, O Yisra’ĕl, which brought you up from the land of Mitsrayim!”
“Gather yourselves and come; draw near together, you who have escaped from the nations. No knowledge have they who are lifting up the wood of their carved image, and pray to a mighty one that does not save.
“They are like a rounded post, and they do not speak. They have to be carried, because they do not walk. Do not be afraid of them, for they do no evil, nor is it in them to do any good.”
O יהוה, my strength and my stronghold and my refuge, in the day of distress the nations shall come to You from the ends of the earth and say, “Our fathers have inherited only falsehood, futility, and there is no value in them.”
Neḇuḵaḏnetstsar the sovereign made an image of gold, whose height was sixty cubits and its width six cubits. He set it up in the plain of Dura, in the province of Baḇel.
Neḇuḵaḏnetstsar spoke and said to them, “Is it true, Shaḏraḵ, Mĕyshaḵ, and Aḇĕḏ-Neḡo, that you do not serve my elahin, and you do not do obeisance to the gold image which I have set up?
“Of what use shall a carved image be? For its maker has carved it: a moulded image and teacher of falsehood! For the maker trusts what he has made: to make dumb idols!
“And you see and hear that not only at Ephesos, but throughout almost all Asia, this Sha’ul has persuaded and turned away a large number, saying that they are not mighty ones which are made with hands.
So then, concerning the eating of food offered to idols, we know that an idol is no matter at all in the world, and that there is no other Elohim but one.