These things that are made of wood and overlaid with gold and silver: The material from which the idols are made is described with precision: they are made of wood, but overlaid [“covered” in Good News Translation] with gold and silver. Overlaid does not mean that there is a lavish amount of precious metal, only that there is a covering or plating of gold or silver.

Are like stones from the mountain: Some translations (New Jerusalem Bible, New English Bible, Contemporary English Version) understand this to mean cut stones, stone that has been quarried, presumably in sizable blocks. New Jerusalem Bible says “are about as much use as rocks cut out of the mountain side.” (“About as much use” is a nice idiom in English, but rocks that people have cut from a mountain are quite useful.) The text does not demand this. Probably the writer is thinking of much smaller stones, rocks that people would find underfoot everywhere while walking up a hillside. These idols may be carefully fashioned, and they may be overlaid with precious metals, but they have no more real worth than any rock you could pick up on a mountain. Another way to express the first half of this verse is “These idols that people have made out of wood and overlaid with gold and silver have no more real worth than stones from a mountain.”

Those who serve them will be put to shame: For serve see the comments on verse 27. Will be put to shame renders the same Greek root as the verb translated “ashamed” in verse 27, but here it is perhaps a bit more emphatic. The sense is a little bit different here also. “Embarrassment” suggests a particular occasion. The meaning here is closer to “disappointed and disillusioned.”

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Shorter Books of the Deuterocanon. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2006. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.