1Again, someone preparing for a voyage and about to travel through wild waves, calls upon a piece of wood more fragile than the vessel that carries him.
2For that vessel was devised by the desire for gain, and a craftsman’s wisdom constructed it.
3But it is your providence, O Father, that steers it, for you have made a way in the sea and a safe path amid the waves,
4showing that you are able to save from anything, so that one may embark even without skill.
5But you desire that the works of your wisdom not be idle; therefore people entrust their lives to a mere plank of wood, and crossing the surge on a raft, they have been saved.
6For in the beginning, when the proud giants were perishing, the hope of the world took refuge on a raft and, steered by your hand, left behind for the world a seed of new life.
7For blessed is the wood through which righteousness comes.
8But the handmade idol is cursed, both it and its maker: the one, because he fashioned it, and the other, because, though perishable, it was called a god.
9For the ungodly man and his ungodliness are equally hateful to God.
10For indeed, the thing that was made will be punished along with the one who made it.
11Therefore there will be a judgment upon the idols of the nations as well, because, though part of God’s creation, they became an abomination, and stumbling blocks for the souls of men, and a snare for the feet of the foolish.
12For the devising of idols was the beginning of spiritual fornication, and their invention was the corruption of life.
13For they did not exist from the beginning, nor will they last forever.
14For by human vanity they entered the world, and for this reason a swift end has been planned for them.
15For a father, consumed with untimely grief for a child taken too soon, made an image of him who was then a dead man, and now honored him as a god, and handed down to his household mysteries and rites.
16Then, in time, the ungodly custom grew strong and was observed as a law, and carved images were worshiped by the commands of tyrants.
17People who were unable to honor rulers in person because they lived far away, fashioned a likeness of their distant appearance and made a visible image of the honored king, so that by their zeal they might flatter the absent one as if he were present.
18Then, to intensify the worship, the ambition of the craftsman also urged on those who were ignorant of the king.
19For he, perhaps desiring to please the ruler, strove with his art to make the likeness more beautiful.
20And the multitude, captivated by the charm of the work, now regarded as an object of worship the man whom shortly before they had only honored.
21And this became a snare for the living, because people, enslaved either by misfortune or tyranny, bestowed the incommunicable Name upon stones and wood.
22Then it was not enough for them to go astray concerning the knowledge of God, but while living in the great war of ignorance, they call such great evils peace.
23For while performing child-murdering rites, or holding secret mysteries, or having frenzied revels with strange customs,
24they no longer keep their lives or their marriages pure, but one either murders another by treachery or grieves him by adultery.
25But all things are a confused mixture: blood and murder, theft and deceit, corruption, faithlessness, disorder, perjury, harassment of the good,
26forgetfulness of grace, defilement of souls, perversion of nature, disorder in marriage, adultery, and debauchery.
27For the worship of nameless idols is the beginning, the cause, and the end of every evil.
28For either they go mad in their revelry, or they prophesy lies, or they live unrighteously, or they readily perjure themselves.
29For since they trust in lifeless idols, they do not expect to be harmed when they swear a wicked oath.
30But justice will overtake them on both counts: because they thought wrongly about God by devoting themselves to idols, and because they swore unrighteously in deceit, despising what is holy.
31For it is not the power of those they swear by, but the penalty for sinners that always pursues the transgression of the unrighteous.
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