1
But you, our God, are kind and true, patient, and ruling all things in mercy.
2
For even if we sin we are yours, knowing your power; but we will not sin, because we know that you acknowledge us as yours.
3
For to know you is complete righteousness, and to know your power is the root of immortality.
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
whose appearance arouses yearning in fools, so that they desire the lifeless form of a dead image.
6
Lovers of evil things and fit for such objects of hope are those who either make or desire or worship them.
7
A potter kneads the soft earth and laboriously molds each vessel for our service, fashioning out of the same clay both the vessels that serve clean uses and those for contrary uses, making all alike; but which shall be the use of each of them the worker in clay decides.
8
With misspent toil, these workers form a futile god from the same clay— these mortals who were made of earth a short time before and after a little while go to the earth from which all mortals are taken, when the time comes to return the souls that were borrowed.
9
But the workers are not concerned that mortals are destined to die or that their life is brief, but they compete with workers in gold and silver, and imitate workers in copper; and they count it a glorious thing to mold counterfeit gods.