Since we have been given to know the one and true God, let us leave aside all that is not God.
① 1Not to us, O Lord, not to us,
but to your name be the glory,
for the sake of your love and faithfulness.
2Why should the pagans say,
“Where is their God?”
3There in heaven is our God;
whatever he wishes, he does.
4Not so the hand-made idols,
crafted in silver and gold.
5They have mouths that cannot speak,
eyes that cannot see,
6ears that cannot hear,
noses that cannot smell.
7They have hands but cannot feel,
feet, but cannot walk;
neither can they make a sound in their throat.
8Their makers will be like them,
so will all who trust in them.
9O Israel, trust in the Lord;
he is your help and your shield!
10You, family of Aaron, trust in the Lord;
he is your help and your shield!
11You who fear the Lord, trust in him;
he is your help and your shield!
12The Lord remembers us and will bless us;
he will bless the family of Israel;
he will bless the family of Aaron;
13he will bless those who fear the Lord,
both the small and the great.
14May the Lord shower blessings,
on you and your children as well.
15May you be blessed by the Lord,
Maker of heaven and earth.
16Heaven belongs to the Lord,
but the earth he has given to humans.
17It is not the dead who praise the Lord,
for they have gone down to silence;
18but it is we, the living, who bless the Lord,
from now on and forever.
- We must constantly denounce the idols of ordinary people as well as the idols of those who pretend to be free of every prejudice. Here is a thought of the poet, Paul Claudel:
“Blessed are you, O my God, who freed me from all the idols and who made me adore you alone, and not Isis or Osiris, or Justice, Progress, Truth, Divinity, Humanity, the Laws of Nature, of Art or of Beauty.
“And who has not permitted these things to exist, things that are not, or are the vacuum left by your absence. I know that you are not the God of the dead, but of the living.
“Lord, I have found you! The one who finds you no longer tolerates death.”
