Wisdom of Solomon, 15

1. But you, our God, are good and true, slow to anger, and governing all with mercy.

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

2. For even if we sin, we are yours, and know your might; but we will not sin, knowing that we belong to you.

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

3. For to know you well is complete justice, and to know your might is the root of immortality.

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

4. For neither did the evil creation of men's fancy deceive us, nor the fruitless labor of painters, A form smeared with varied colors,

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,

5. the sight of which arouses yearning in the senseless man, till he longs for the inanimate form of a dead image.

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

6. Lovers of evil things, and worthy of such hopes are they who make them and long for them and worship them.

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

7. For truly the potter, laboriously working the soft earth, molds for our service each several article: Both the vessels that serve for clean purposes and their opposites, all alike; As to what shall be the use of each vessel of either class the worker in clay is the judge.

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.

8. And with misspent toil he molds a meaningless god from the selfsame clay; though he himself shortly before was made from the earth And after a little, is to go whence he was taken, when the life that was lent him is demanded back.

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.

9. But his concern is not that he is to die nor that his span of life is brief; Rather, he vies with goldsmiths and silversmiths and emulates molders of bronze, and takes pride in modeling counterfeits.

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.

10. Ashes his heart is! more worthless than earth is his hope, and more ignoble than clay his life;

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

11. Because he knew not the one who fashioned him, and breathed into him a quickening soul, and infused a vital spirit.

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

12. Instead, he esteemed our life a plaything, and our span of life a holiday for gain; "For one must," says he, "make profit every way, be it even out of evil."

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.'

13. For this man more than any knows that he is sinning, when out of earthen stuff he creates fragile vessels and idols alike.

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

14. But all quite senseless, and worse than childish in mind, are the enemies of your people who enslaved them.

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,

15. For they esteemed all the idols of the nations gods, which have no use of the eyes for vision, nor nostrils to snuff the air, Nor ears to hear, nor fingers on their hands for feeling; even their feet are useless to walk with.

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.

16. For a man made them; one whose spirit has been lent him fashioned them. For no man succeeds in fashioning a god like himself;

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;

17. being mortal, he makes a dead thing with his lawless hands. For he is better than the things he worships; he at least lives, but never they.

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.

18. And besides, they worship the most loathsome beasts-- for compared as to folly, these are worse than the rest,

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

19. Nor for their looks are they good or desirable beasts, but they have escaped both the approval of God and his blessing.

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