1But you, our God, are kind and true; you bear evil patiently and order everything with mercy. 2Even when we sin we belong to you and acknowledge your power, but aware that we belong to you, we shall not sin.
3To know you is perfect righteousness and to acknowledge your power is the root of immortality.
4So we have not been led astray by a deceptive invention of human act – the sterile labor of painters – these idols daubed with colors, 5the sight of which stirs yearning in fools attached to the lifeless face of a dead image.
6Really, idol-makers and those who serve and worship them are looking for disgrace and deserve to have false hope.
7The potter, laboriously working the soft clay, fashions each object for our use, and from the same clay he shapes vessels, some for food, and others for what is thrown away. The potter makes vessels for both clean and unclean uses and decides to what purpose each one is shaped. 8The same way and from the same clay he fashions a helpless god; cursed labor of a man recently formed from clay, who will shortly return to clay when he is called to give up his soul.
9He has no thought of dying soon, no thought of the short duration of life. None at all. He competes with those who work on silver and gold and, like the smith, he feels proud to make a counterfeit of God.
10Ashes, that is what his heart is; his hope cheaper than dust; 11his life worth as much as clay, for he has not acknowledged his Maker, who has breathed into him an active soul, a living spirit. 12He looks on life as a game and its duration a market full of bargains, for as he says, “a man must make the most of life whether by fair means or foul.”
13For these, more than others, know that they sin in fashioning with the same clay, vessels and sculptured gods.
14But utterly foolish and more pitiable than the soul of a newborn infant were the enemies that oppressed your people. 15They received as gods all the idols of the nations – idols that have no eyes to see, no nostrils to breathe the air, no ears to hear, no fingers to feel with, or feet that are able to walk. For these gods are the work of a man, a creature of borrowed breath made them.
16Man cannot even make a god that resembles himself; 17a mortal’s unholy hands produce a dead god. He is, in fact, superior to what he worships, since he at least lives, but they will never live.
18People worship the most repulsive animals, the most stupid of all who, unlike other animals, are devoid of beauty; 19these are unattractive creatures who have missed the blessing of God and are not fit to give him praise.
