{15:1} But you, our God, are gracious and true, patient, and in mercy ordering all things.
{15:2} And, indeed, if we sin, we are yours, knowing your greatness; and, if we do not sin, we know that we are counted with you.
{15:3} For to have known you is perfect justice, and to know justice and your virtue is the root of immortality.
{15:4} For the skillful planning of evil men has not led us into error, nor the shadow of a picture, a fruitless labor, an image having been sculpted through the use of diverse colors,
{15:5} the sight of which gives desire to the foolish, and he loves the likeness of a lifeless image without a soul.
{15:6} Deserving are the lovers of evil, those who hope in such things, and those who make them, and those who love them, and those who promote them.
{15:7} But even the potter, pressing laboriously, molds the soft earth into vessels, each one for our use. And from the same clay he molds vessels, those which are for clean use, and similarly, those which are for the opposite. But, as to what is the use of a vessel, the potter is the judge.
{15:8} And with effort he molds an empty god of the same clay, he who a little before had been made from the earth, and, after brief time, he himself returns from whence he came, to be claimed by he who holds the debt of his soul.
{15:9} Yet his concern is, not what his work will be, nor that his life is short, but that he is being contested by those who work with gold and silver, yet he also does the same to those who work with copper, and he glories that he makes worthless things.
{15:10} For his heart is ashes, and his hope is worthless dirt, and his life is more common than clay,
{15:11} because he ignores the One who molded him, and who instilled in him a working soul, and who breathed into him a living spirit.
{15:12} Yet they even considered our life to be a plaything, and the usefulness of life to be the accumulation of wealth, and that we must be acquiring things in every possible way, even from evil.
{15:13} For, above all else, he knows himself to be lacking, who, from fragile material of the earth forms vessels and graven images.
{15:14} For all the foolish and unhappy, in charge of the way of the arrogant soul, are enemies of your people and rule over them,
{15:15} because they have esteemed all the idols of the nations as gods, which neither have the use of eyes to see, nor noses to draw breath, nor ears to hear, nor the fingers of hands to grasp, and even their feet are slow to walk.
{15:16} For man made them, and he who borrowed his own breath, formed them. For no man will be able to form God in the likeness of himself.
{15:17} For, being mortal, he forms a dead thing with his unjust hands. Yet, he is better than those things that he worships, because he indeed has lived, though he is mortal, but they never have.
{15:18} Moreover, they worship the most miserable animals, for, to make a foolish comparison, these others are worse.
{15:19} But not even from their appearance can anyone discern anything good in these animals. Yet they have fled from the praise of God, and from his blessing.

{14:1} Again, another, thinking to sail, and beginning to make his voyage through the raging waves, calls upon a piece of wood more fragile than the wood that carries him.
{14:2} For this is what desire has contrived to be acquired, and the craftsman has formed its understanding.
{14:3} But your providence, O Father, governs, because you have provided for both a way in the sea and a very reliable path among the waves,
{14:4} revealing that you are able to save out of all things, even if someone were to go to sea without skill.
{14:5} But, so that the works of your wisdom might not be empty, therefore, men trust their souls even to a little piece of wood, and, crossing over the sea by raft, they are set free.
{14:6} But, from the beginning, when the proud giants were perishing, the hope of the world, fleeing by boat, gave back to future ages a seed of birth, which was governed by your hand.
{14:7} For blessed is the wood through which justice is made.
{14:8} But, through the hand that makes the idol, both it, and he who made it, is accursed: he, indeed, because it has been served by him, and it, because, though it is fragile, it is called ‘god.’
{14:9} But the impious and his impiety are similarly offensive to God.
{14:10} For that which is made, together with him who made it, will suffer torments.
{14:11} Because of this, and according to the idolatries of the nations, there will be no refuge, for the things created by God have been made into hatred, and into a temptation to the souls of men, and into a snare for the feet of the foolish.
{14:12} For the beginning of fornication is the search for idols, and from their invention comes corruption of life.
{14:13} For they neither existed from the beginning, nor will they exist forever.
{14:14} For by the great emptiness of men they came into the world, and therefore their end is soon discovered.
{14:15} For a father, embittered with the suffering of grief, made an image of his son, who had been suddenly taken away from him, and then, he who had died as a man, now begins to be worshiped as if a god, and so rites and sacrifices are established among his servants.
{14:16} Then, in the course of time, iniquity gains strength within this erroneous custom, so that this error has been observed as if it were a law, and this figment has been worshiped at the command of tyrants.
{14:17} And those, whom men could not openly honor because they were far off, a likeness of them was carried from far off, and from it they made a similar image of the king that they wanted to honor, so that, by their solicitude, they might worship he who was absent, just as if he were present.
{14:18} Yet, it passes into their care, and those whom they did not know, they love because of the excellence of the artist.
{14:19} For he, wishing to please the one who hired him, embellished his art, so as to fashion a better likeness.
{14:20} But the multitude of men, brought together by the beauty of the work, now considered him to be a god, whom they had formerly honored as a man.
{14:21} And this was the deception of human life: that men, serving either their own inclination or their kings, assigned the unutterable name to stones and wood.
{14:22} And it was not enough for them to go astray concerning the knowledge of God, but also, while living in a great war of ignorance, they call so many and such great evils ‘peace.’
{14:23} For either they sacrifice their own sons, or they make dark sacrifices, or they hold vigils full of madness,
{14:24} so that now they neither protect life, nor preserve a clean marriage, but one kills another through envy, or grieves him by adultery.
{14:25} And all things are mixed together: blood, murder, theft and fraud, corruption and infidelity, disturbances and perjury, disorder within good things,
{14:26} forgetfulness of God, pollution of souls, alteration of procreation, inconstancy of marriage, unnatural adultery and homosexuality.
{14:27} For the worship of unspeakable idols is the cause, and the beginning and the end, of all evil.
{14:28} For they either act with madness while happy, or they insistently speak wild lies, or they live unjustly, or they are quick to commit perjury.
{14:29} For, while they trust in idols, which are without a soul, vowing evil, they hope not to be harmed themselves.
{14:30} Therefore, from both sides it will fittingly happen, because they have thought evil of God, paying attention to idols, and because they have sworn unjustly, in guile despising justice.
{14:31} For swearing is not virtue, but sinning always comes around to a punishment according to the transgression of the unjust.