Wisdom of Solomon, 15

1. But you, our God, are kind and true, slow to anger, governing the universe with mercy.

1. But thou, O God, art gracious and true, longsuffering, and in mercy ordering all things,

2. Even if we sin, we are yours, since we acknowledge your power, but we will not sin, knowing we count as yours.

2. For if we sin, we are thine, knowing thy power: but we will not sin, knowing that we are counted thine.

3. To know you is indeed the perfect virtue, and to know your power is the root of immortality.

3. For to know thee is perfect righteousness: yea, to know thy power is the root of immortality.

4. We have not been duped by inventions of misapplied human skill, or by the sterile work of painters, by figures daubed with assorted colours,

4. For neither did the mischievous invention of men deceive us, nor an image spotted with divers colours, the painter's fruitless labour;

5. the sight of which sets fools yearning and hankering for the lifeless form of an unbreathing image.

5. The sight whereof enticeth fools to lust after it, and so they desire the form of a dead image, that hath no breath.

6. Lovers of evil and worthy of such hopes are those who make them, those who want them and those who worship them.

6. Both they that make them, they that desire them, and they that worship them, are lovers of evil things, and are worthy to have such things to trust upon.

7. Take a potter, now, laboriously working the soft earth, shaping each object for us to use. Out of the self-same clay, he models vessels intended for a noble use and those for a contrary purpose, all alike: but which of these two uses each will have is for the potter himself to decide.

7. For the potter, tempering soft earth, fashioneth every vessel with much labour for our service: yea, of the same clay he maketh both the vessels that serve for clean uses, and likewise also all such as serve to the contrary: but what is the use of either sort, the potter himself is the judge.

8. Then -- ill -- spent effort!-from the same clay he models a futile god, although so recently made out of earth himself and shortly to return to what he was taken from, when asked to give back the soul that has been lent to him.

8. And employing his labours lewdly, he maketh a vain god of the same clay, even he which a little before was made of earth himself, and within a little while after returneth to the same, out when his life which was lent him shall be demanded.

9. Even so, he does not worry about having to die or about the shortness of his life, but strives to outdo the goldsmiths and silversmiths, imitates the bronzeworkers, and prides himself on modelling counterfeits.

9. Notwithstanding his care is, not that he shall have much labour, nor that his life is short: but striveth to excel goldsmiths and silversmiths, and endeavoureth to do like the workers in brass, and counteth it his glory to make counterfeit things.

10. Ashes, his heart; more vile than earth, his hope; more wretched than clay, his life!

10. His heart is ashes, his hope is more vile than earth, and his life of less value than clay:

11. For he has misconceived the One who has modelled him, who breathed an active soul into him and inspired a living spirit.

11. Forasmuch as he knew not his Maker, and him that inspired into him an active soul, and breathed in a living spirit.

12. What is more, he looks on this life of ours as a kind of game, and our time here like a fair, full of bargains. 'However foul the means,' he says, 'a man must make a living.'

12. But they counted our life a pastime, and our time here a market for gain: for, say they, we must be getting every way, though it be by evil means.

13. He, more than any other, knows he is sinning, he who from one earthy stuff makes both brittle pots and idols.

13. For this man, that of earthly matter maketh brittle vessels and graven images, knoweth himself to offend above all others.

14. But most foolish, more pitiable even than the soul of a little child, are the enemies who once played the tyrant with your people,

14. And all the enemies of thy people, that hold them in subjection, are most foolish, and are more miserable than very babes.

15. and have taken all the idols of the heathen for gods; these can use neither their eyes for seeing nor their nostrils for breathing the air nor their ears for hearing nor the fingers on their hands for handling nor their feet for walking.

15. For they counted all the idols of the heathen to be gods: which neither have the use of eyes to see, nor noses to draw breath, nor ears to hear, nor fingers of hands to handle; and as for their feet, they are slow to go.

16. They have been made, you see, by a human being, modelled by a being whose own breath is borrowed. No man can model a god to resemble himself;

16. For man made them, and he that borrowed his own spirit fashioned them: but no man can make a god like unto himself.

17. subject to death, his impious hands can produce only something dead. He himself is worthier than the things he worships; he will at least have lived, but never they.

17. For being mortal, he worketh a dead thing with wicked hands: for he himself is better than the things which he worshippeth: whereas he lived once, but they never.

18. And they worship even the most loathsome of animals, worse than the rest in their degree of stupidity,

18. Yea, they worshipped those beasts also that are most hateful: for being compared together, some are worse than others.

19. without a trace of beauty -- if that is what is attractive in animals- and excluded from God's praises and blessing.

19. Neither are they beautiful, so much as to be desired in respect of beasts: but they went without the praise of God and his blessing.