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14:1  Again, one preparing for a voyage and about to traverse the wild waves cries out to wood more unsound than the boat that bears him.
14:2  For the urge for profits devised this latter, and Wisdom the artisan produced it.
14:3  But your providence, O Father! guides it, for you have furnished even in the sea a road, and through the waves a steady path,
14:4  Showing that you can save from any danger, so that even one without skill may embark.
14:5  But you will that the products of your Wisdom be not idle; therefore people trust their lives even to most frail wood, and were safe crossing the waves on a raft.
14:6  For of old, when the proud giants were being destroyed, the hope of the universe, who took refuge on a raft, left to the world a future for the human family, under the guidance of your hand.
14:7  For blest is the wood through which righteousness comes about;
14:8  but the handmade idol is accursed, and its maker as well: he for having produced it, and the corruptible thing, because it was termed a god.
14:9  Equally odious to God are the evildoer and the evil deed;
14:10  and the thing made will be punished with its maker.
14:11  Therefore upon even the idols of the nations shall a judgment come, since they became abominable among God’s works, Snares for human souls and a trap for the feet of the senseless.
14:12  For the source of wantonness is the devising of idols; and their invention, a corruption of life.
14:13  For in the beginning they were not, nor can they ever continue;
14:14  for from human emptiness they came into the world, and therefore a sudden end is devised for them.
14:15  For a father, afflicted with untimely mourning, made an image of the child so quickly taken from him, And now honored as a god what once was dead and handed down to his household mysteries and sacrifices.
14:16  Then, in the course of time, the impious practice gained strength and was observed as law, and graven things were worshiped by royal decrees.
14:17  People who lived so far away that they could not honor him in his presence copied the appearance of the distant king And made a public image of him they wished to honor, out of zeal to flatter the absent one as though present.
14:18  And to promote this observance among those to whom it was strange, the artisan’s ambition provided a stimulus.
14:19  For he, perhaps in his determination to please the ruler, labored over the likeness to the best of his skill;
14:20  And the masses, drawn by the charm of the workmanship, soon took as an object of worship the one who shortly before was honored as a human being.
14:21  And this became a snare for the world, that people enslaved to either grief or tyranny conferred the incommunicable Name on stones and wood.
14:22  Then it was not enough for them to err in their knowledge of God; but even though they live in a great war resulting from ignorance, they call such evils peace.
14:23  For while they practice either child sacrifices or occult mysteries, or frenzied carousing in exotic rites,
14:24  They no longer respect either lives or purity of marriage; but they either waylay and kill each other, or aggrieve each other by adultery.
14:25  And all is confusion—blood and murder, theft and guile, corruption, faithlessness, turmoil, perjury,
14:26  Disturbance of good people, neglect of gratitude, besmirching of souls, unnatural lust, disorder in marriage, adultery and shamelessness.
14:27  For the worship of infamous idols is the reason and source and extreme of all evil.
14:28  For they either go mad with enjoyment, or prophesy lies, or live lawlessly or lightly perjure themselves.
14:29  For as their trust is in lifeless idols, they expect no harm when they have sworn falsely.
14:30  But on both counts justice shall overtake them: because they thought perversely of God by devoting themselves to idols, and because they deliberately swore false oaths, despising piety.
14:31  For it is not the might of those by whom they swear, but the just retribution of sinners, that ever follows upon the transgression of the wicked.