The Hebrew Prophets

Here comes Adonai ELOHIM with power, and his arm will rule for him. Look! His reward is with him, and his recompense is before him.

He is like a shepherd feeding his flock, gathering his lambs with his arm, carrying them against his chest, gently leading the mother sheep."

Who has counted the handfuls of water in the sea, measured off the sky with a ruler, gauged how much dust there is on the earth, weighed the mountains on scales, or the hills in a balance?

Who has measured the Spirit of ADONAI? Who has been his counselor, instructing him?

Whom did he consult, to gain understanding? Who taught him how to judge, taught him what he needed to know, showed him how to discern?

The nations are like a drop in a bucket, they count like a grain of dust on the scales. The islands weigh as little as specks of dust.

The L'vanon would not suffice for fuel or its animals be enough for burnt offerings.

Before him all the nations are like nothing. He regards them as less than nothing.

With whom, then, will you compare God? By what standard will you evaluate him?

An image made by a craftsman, which a goldsmith overlays with gold, for which he then casts silver chains?

A man too poor to afford an offering chooses a piece of wood that won't rot, then seeks out a skilled artisan to prepare an image that won't fall over.

Don't you know? Don't you hear? Haven't you been told from the start? Don't you understand how the earth is set up?

He who sits above the circle of the earth - for whom its inhabitants appear like grasshoppers - stretches out the heavens like a curtain, spreads them out like a tent to live in.

He reduces princes to nothing, the rulers of the earth to emptiness.

Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely their stem taken root in the ground, when he blows on them, they dry up, and the whirlwind carries them off like straw.

"With whom, then, will you compare me? With whom am I equal?" asks the Holy One.

Turn your eyes to the heavens! See who created these? He brings out the army of them in sequence, summoning each by name. Through his great might and his massive strength, not one of them is missing.

Why do you complain, Ya'akov; why do you say, Isra'el, "My way is hidden from ADONAI, my rights are ignored by my God"?

Haven't you known, haven't you heard that the everlasting God, ADONAI, the Creator of the ends of the earth, does not grow tired or weary? His understanding cannot be fathomed.

He invigorates the exhausted, he gives strength to the powerless.

Young men may grow tired and weary, even the fittest may stumble and fall;

but those who hope in ADONAI will renew their strength, they will soar aloft as with eagles' wings; when they are running they won't grow weary, when they are walking they won't get tired.

"Keep silence before me, coastlands! Let the peoples replenish their strength! Let them approach; then let them speak. Let us assemble for judgment."

Who has raised from the east one who is just and called him to be in his service? He hands nations over to him and subjects kings to him; his sword reduces them to dust, his bow to driven straw.

He pursues them, passing on unscathed, hardly touching the path with his feet.