For the practices of the peoples are worthless; they cut a tree out of the forest, and a skilled worker shapes it with a chisel.
NIV
For the customs and ordinances of the peoples are false, empty, and futile; it is but a tree which one cuts out of the forest [to make for himself a god], the work of the hands of the craftsman with the ax or other tool.
AMP
For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.
KJV
And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.
NIV
And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is mere delusion [futile, fruitless], and you are still in your sins [under the control and penalty of sin]AMP
And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.
KJV
They rejected his decrees and the covenant he had made with their ancestors and the statutes he had warned them to keep. They followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless. They imitated the nations around them although the LORD had ordered them, "Do not do as they do."
NIV
They despised and rejected His statutes and His covenant which He made with their fathers and His warnings to them, and they followed vanity (false gods--falsehood, emptiness, and futility) and [they themselves and their prayers] became false (empty and futile). They went after the heathen round about them, of whom the Lord had charged them that they should not do as they did.
AMP
And they rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified against them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and went after the heathen that were round about them, concerning whom the LORD had charged them, that they should not do like them.
KJV
