Wisdom of Solomon, 15

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

1. But thou, our God, art kind and true, patient, and ruling all things in mercy.

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 even if we sin we are thine, knowing thy power; but we will not sin, because we know that we are accounted 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 complete righteousness, and 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 has the evil intent of human art misled us, nor the fruitless toil of painters, a figure stained with varied colors,

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

5. whose appearance arouses yearning in fools, so that they desire the lifeless form of a dead image.

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

6. Lovers of evil things and fit for such objects of hope are those who either make or desire or worship them.

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 when a potter kneads the soft earth and laboriously molds each vessel for our service, he fashions out of the same clay both the vessels that serve clean uses and those for contrary uses, making all in like manner; but which shall be the use of each of these the worker in clay decides.

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. With misspent toil, he forms a futile god from the same clay -- this man who was made of earth a short time before and after a little while goes to the earth from which he was taken, when he is required to return the soul that was lent him.

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. But he is not concerned that he is destined to die or that his life is brief, but he competes with workers in gold and silver, and imitates workers in copper; and he counts it his glory that he molds counterfeit gods.

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

10. His heart is ashes, his hope is cheaper than dirt, and his life is of less worth 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. because he failed to know the one who formed him and inspired him with an active soul and breathed into him 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 he considered our existence an idle game, and life a festival held for profit, for he says one must get money however one can, even by base 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, more than all others, knows that he sins when he makes from earthy matter fragile vessels and graven images.

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. But most foolish, and more miserable than an infant, are all the enemies who oppressed thy people.

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 thought that all their heathen idols were gods, though these have neither the use of their eyes to see with, nor nostrils with which to draw breath, nor ears with which to hear, nor fingers to feel with, and their feet are of no use for walking.

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 a man made them, and one whose spirit is borrowed formed them; for no man can form a god which is like 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. He is mortal, and what he makes with lawless hands is dead, for he is better than the objects he worships, since he has life, but they never have.

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

18. The enemies of thy people worship even the most hateful animals, which are worse than all others, when judged by their lack of intelligence;

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

19. and even as animals they are not so beautiful in appearance that one would desire them, but they have escaped both the praise of God and his blessing.