A Satire on idolatry
10:1 Shemut (Hear) et ha Dvar asher (which) ADONAI (יהוה) speaks to you: O beit Yisra'el:
10:2 Thus said ADONAI (יהוה):
Learn not the derek ha Goyim, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for ha Goyim are dismayed at them.
10:3 For the customs of the people [are] vain: for [one] cuts a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.
10:4 They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.
10:5 They [are] upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also [is it] in them to do good.
10:6 Forasmuch as [there is] none like to you, O ADONAI (יהוה); you are great, and Your Name [is] great in might.
10:7 Who would not fear you, O King of nations? for to you does it appertain: forasmuch as among all the wise [men] of the nations, and in all their melekhim, [there is] none like to you.
10:8 But they are altogether brutish and foolish: the stock [is] a doctrine of vanities.
10:9 Silver spread into plates is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the workman, and of the hands of the founder: blue and purple [is] their clothing: they [are] all the work of cunning [men].
10:10 But ADONAI (יהוה) [is] the true Elohim (אלהים), he [is] the living Elohim (אלהים), and an everlasting king: at His wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his indignation.
10:11 Thus shall you say to them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, [even] they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens.
10:12 He has made the earth by his power, he has established the world by his wisdom, and has stretched out the heavens by his discretion.
10:13 When he utters his voice, [there is] a multitude of waters in the heavens, and he causes the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth; he maketh lightnings with rain, and bringeth forth the wind out of his treasures.
10:14 Every man is brutish in [his] knowledge: every founder is confounded by the graven image: for his molten image [is] falsehood, and [there is] no breath in them.
10:15 They [are] vanity, [and] the work of errors: in the time of their visitation they shall perish.
10:16 The portion of Ya'akov [is] not like them: for he [is] the former of all [things]; and Yisra'el [is] the rod of his inheritance: ADONAI (יהוה) Tzva'ot [is] His Name.
10:17 Gather up your wares out of the land, O inhabitant of the fortress.
10:18 For thus said ADONAI (יהוה):
Behold, I will sling out the inhabitants of the land at this once, and will distress them, that they may find [it so].
10:19 Woe is me for my hurt! my wound is grievous: but I said, Truly this [is] a grief, and I must bear it.
10:20 My tabernacle is spoiled, and all my cords are broken: my children are gone forth of me, and they [are] not: [there is] none to stretch forth my tent any more, and to set up my curtains.
10:21 For the rulers (ro'im) are become brutish, and have not sought ADONAI (יהוה): therefore they shall not prosper, and all their flocks shall be scattered.
10:22 Behold, the noise of the bruit is come, and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of Yehudah desolate, [and] a den of dragons.
10:23 O ADONAI (יהוה), I know that the derekh of man [is] not in himself: [it is] not in man that walketh to direct his steps.
10:24 O ADONAI (יהוה), correct me, but with judgment; not in Thine anger, lest you bring me to nothing.
10:25 Pour out Your fury upon ha Goyim that know you not, and upon the mishpekhot (families) that call not on Your Name: for they have eaten up Ya'akov, and devoured him, and consumed him, and have made his habitation desolate.