Wisdom of Solomon 14

1Again, someone preparing to sail and about to pass through wild waves boards more fragile wood than the ship that carries him.

2For it was desire for profit that devised that one, and skillful wisdom constructed it;

3But your providence, Father, steers it, because you gave a way even in the sea, and a safe path in the waves,

4showing that you are able to save from every peril, so that even someone without skill may embark.

5But you intend that the works of your wisdom should not be idle; therefore even with the smallest piece of wood men entrust their lives, and passing through the waves on a raft, they were brought safely through.

6For when the proud giants were being destroyed at the beginning, the hope of the world, taking refuge on a raft, left to the age to come a seed of generation, steered by your hand.

7For blessed is the wood through which righteousness comes.

8But the thing made by hands is accursed, both it and the one who made it, because the one made it, but the perishable thing was called god.

9For the ungodly man and his ungodliness are equally hateful to God;

10For the thing done, together with the one who did it, will be punished.

11Therefore there will also be a visitation upon the idols of the nations, because among God’s creatures they became an abomination, and a stumbling block to the souls of men, and a snare for the feet of fools.

12For the beginning of sexual immorality is the devising of idols, and the invention of them is the corruption of life.

13For it was not from the beginning, nor will it be forever.

14For by human vanity it entered into the world, and because of this their end was devised to be brief.

15For a father, worn down by untimely grief for the child quickly taken away, made an image of the one then dead, and now honored him as a god, and handed down mysteries and rites to those under his authority;

16Then, as time passed, that ungodly custom grew strong and was kept as a law, and by the commands of tyrants the carved images were worshiped.

17Since men were not able to honor them in person because they lived far away, they reproduced the distant appearance and made a visible image of the honored king, so that by their zeal they might flatter the absent one as though present.

18And the ambition of the craftsman urged on even those who were ignorant toward an intensification of worship.

19For he, perhaps wishing to please the ruler, forced the likeness by his skill into a more beautiful form;

20And the multitude, drawn by the charm of the workmanship, now regarded as an object of worship the man who a little before had been honored.

21And this became an ambush against life, because men, enslaved by calamity or by tyranny, bestowed the incommunicable name on stones and wood.

22Then it was not enough for them to go astray concerning the knowledge of God, but also, living in a great war of ignorance, they call such great evils peace.

23For they were conducting either child-killing rites, or secret mysteries, or frenzied revelries with strange customs,

24They no longer keep either lives or marriages pure; instead, one kills another by treachery, or by adultery causes grief.

25and everything is mixed together: blood and murder, theft and deceit, corruption, faithlessness, turmoil, perjury, and confusion over what is good,

26forgetfulness of favors, defilement of souls, perversion of birth, disorder in marriages, adultery and debauchery.

27For the worship of nameless idols is the beginning and cause and end of every evil.

28For either, while reveling, they go mad; or they prophesy lies; or they live unjustly; or they quickly swear false oaths;

29For because they trusted in lifeless idols, after swearing wickedly they do not expect to be harmed.

30But justice will pursue them both, because they thought wrongly about God by giving heed to idols, and they swore unjustly in deceit, despising holiness.

31For it is not the power of the things by which they swear, but the punishment of those who sin, that always pursues the transgression of the unrighteous.