Next the Lord showed me four blacksmiths. ¹ 

You remove all the wicked of the earth like slag. ¹  Therefore I love your rules. ² 

‘Cursed is the one ¹  who makes a carved or metal image – something abhorrent ²  to the Lord, the work of the craftsman ³  – and sets it up in a secret place.’ Then all the people will say, ‘Amen!’ ⁴ 

The king of Babylon deported to Babylon all the soldiers (there were 7,000), as well as 1,000 craftsmen and metal workers. This included all the best warriors. ¹ 

As I watched, I noticed ¹  a form that appeared to be a man. ²  From his waist downward was something like fire, ³  and from his waist upward something like a brightness, ⁴  like an amber glow. ⁵ 

What good ¹  is an idol? Why would a craftsman make it? ²  What good is a metal image that gives misleading oracles? ³  Why would its creator place his trust in it ⁴  and make ⁵  such mute, worthless things?

Now Zillah also gave birth to Tubal-Cain, who heated metal and shaped ¹  all kinds of tools made of bronze and iron. The sister of Tubal-Cain was Naamah.

He made the lampstand of pure gold. He made the lampstand of hammered metal; its base and its shaft, its cups, its buds, and its blossoms were from the same piece. ¹ 

I will attack you; ¹  I will purify your metal with flux. ²  I will remove all your slag. ³ 

When he gave back to his mother the eleven hundred pieces of silver, his mother said, “I solemnly dedicate ¹  this silver to the Lord. It will be for my son’s benefit. We will use it to make a carved image and a metal image.” ² 

The five men who had gone to spy out the land of Laish ¹  said to their kinsmen, ²  “Do you realize that inside these houses are an ephod, some personal idols, a carved image, and a metal image? Decide now what you want to do.”

The five men who had gone to spy out the land broke in and stole ¹  the carved image, the ephod, the personal idols, and the metal image, while the priest was standing at the entrance to the gate with the six hundred fully armed men. ² 

when the dust hardens ¹  into a mass, and the clumps of earth stick together?

Their ¹  idols are made of silver and gold – they are man-made. ² 

Your ¹  silver has become scum, ²  your beer is diluted with water. ³ 

The craftsman encourages the metalsmith, the one who wields the hammer encourages ¹  the one who pounds on the anvil. He approves the quality of the welding, ²  and nails it down so it won’t fall over.”

Who forms a god and casts an idol that will prove worthless? ¹ 

They are regarded as ‘rejected silver’ ¹  because the Lord rejects them.”

Persia, ¹  Ethiopia, and Put ²  are with them, all of them with shields and helmets.

Even now they persist in sin! ¹  They make metal images for themselves, idols that they skillfully fashion ²  from their own silver; all of them are nothing but the work of craftsmen! There is a saying about them: ³  “Those who sacrifice ⁴  to the calf idol are calf kissers!” ⁵