20 To make a contribution one selects wood that will not rot; he then seeks a skilled craftsman to make an idol that will not fall over. 21 Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told to you since the very beginning? Have you not understood from the time the earth’s foundations were made? 22 He is the one who sits on the earth’s horizon; its inhabitants are like grasshoppers before him. He is the one who stretches out the sky like a thin curtain, and spreads it out like a pitched tent. 23 He is the one who reduces rulers to nothing; he makes the earth’s leaders insignificant. 24 Indeed, they are barely planted; yes, they are barely sown; yes, they barely take root in the earth, and then he blows on them, causing them to dry up, and the wind carries them away like straw.

25 before the mountains were set in place—before the hills—I was born, 26 before he made the earth and its fields, or the top soil of the world. 27 When he established the heavens, I was there; when he marked out the horizon over the face of the deep, 28 when he established the clouds above, when he secured the fountains of the deep, 29 when he gave the sea his decree that the waters should not pass over his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth,