18 They have not come to know,+ nor do they understand,+ because their eyes have been besmeared so as not to see,+ their heart so as to have no insight.+

20 “Collect yourselves and come.+ Bring yourselves up close together, YOU escapees from the nations.+ Those carrying the wood* of their carved image have not come to any knowledge, neither have those praying to a god that cannot save.*+

5 They are like a scarecrow of a cucumber field, and cannot speak.+ Without fail they are carried, for they cannot take any steps.+ Do not be afraid because of them, for they can do nothing calamitous and, what is more, the doing of any good is not with them.”+

23 But against the Lord of the heavens* you exalted yourself,+ and they brought before you even the vessels of his house;+ and you yourself and your grandees, your concubines and your secondary wives have been drinking wine from them, and you have praised mere gods* of silver and of gold, copper, iron, wood and stone,+ that are beholding nothing or hearing nothing or knowing nothing;+ but the God* in whose hand your breath* is+ and to whom all your ways belong+ you have not glorified.+

18 Of what benefit has a carved image been,+ when the former of it has carved it, a molten statue, and an instructor in falsehood?+ when the former of its form has trusted in it,+ to the extent of making valueless gods* that are speechless?+

4 Now concerning the eating+ of foods offered to idols, we know that an idol is nothing+ in the world,* and that there is no God but one.+

19 What, then, am I to say? That what is sacrificed to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything?+

2 YOU know that when YOU were people of the nations,+ YOU were being led away to those voiceless+ idols+ just as YOU happened to be led.