Wisdom 15

NEW JERUSALEM	DOUAI-RHEIMS
1 But you, our God, are kind and true, slow to anger, governing the universe with mercy.	1 But thou, our God, art gracious and true, patient, and ordering all things in mercy.
2 Even if we sin, we are yours, since we acknowledge your power, but we wil not sin, knowing we countas yours.	2 For if we sin, we are thine, knowing thy greatness: and if we sin not, we know that we are counted with thee.
3 To know you is indeed the perfect virtue, and to know your power is the root of immortality.	3 For to know thee is perfect justice: and to know thy justice, and thy power, is the root of immortality.
4 We have not been duped by inventions of misapplied human skil , or by the sterile work of painters, byfigures daubed with assorted colours,	4 For the invention of mischievous men hath not deceived us, nor the shadow of a picture, a fruitless labour, a graven figure with divers colours,
5 the sight of which sets fools yearning and hankering for the lifeless form of an unbreathing image.	5 The sight whereof enticeth the fool to lust after it, and he loveth the lifeless figure of a dead image.
6 Lovers of evil and worthy of such hopes are those who make them, those who want them and thosewho worship them.	6 The lovers of evil things deserve to have no better things to trust in, both they that make them, and they that love them,and they that worship them.
7 Take a potter, now, laboriously working the soft earth, shaping each object for us to use. Out of theself-same clay, he models vessels intended for a noble use and those for a contrary purpose, al alike: but whichof these two uses each wil have is for the potter himself to decide.	7 The potter also tempering soft earth, with labour fashioneth every vessel for our service, and of the same clay he maketh both vessels that are for clean uses, and likewise such as serve to the contrary: but what is the use of these vessels, the potter is the judge.
8 Then -- il -- spent effort!-from the same clay he models a futile god, although so recently made out ofearth himself and shortly to return to what he was taken from, when asked to give back the soul that has beenlent to him.	8 And of the same clay by a vain labour he maketh a god: he who a little before was made of earth himself, and a little after returneth to the same out of which he was taken, when his life which was lent him shall be called for again.
9 Even so, he does not worry about having to die or about the shortness of his life, but strives to outdothe goldsmiths and silversmiths, imitates the bronzeworkers, and prides himself on model ing counterfeits.	9 But his care is, not that he shall labour, nor that his life is short, but he striveth with the goldsmiths and silversmiths: and he endeavoureth to do like the workers in brass, and counteth it a glory to make vain things.
10 Ashes, his heart; more vile than earth, his hope; more wretched than clay, his life!	10 For his heart is ashes, and his hope vain earth, and his life more base than clay:
11 For he has misconceived the One who has model ed him, who breathed an active soul into him andinspired a living spirit.	11 Forasmuch as he knew not his maker and him that inspired into him the soul that worketh, and that breathed into him a living spirit.
12 What is more, he looks on this life of ours as a kind of game, and our time here like a fair, ful of bargains. 'However foul the means,' he says, 'a man must make a living.'	12 Yea and they have counted our life a pastime, and the business of life to be gain, and that we must be getting every way, even out of evil.
13 He, more than any other, knows he is sinning, he who from one earthy stuff makes both brittle potsand idols.	13 For that man knoweth that he offendeth above all others, who of earthly matter maketh brittle vessels, and graven gods.
14 But most foolish, more pitiable even than the soul of a little child, are the enemies who once playedthe tyrant with your people,	14 But all the enemies of thy people that hold them in subjection, are foolish, and unhappy, and proud beyond measure:
15 and have taken al the idols of the heathen for gods; these can use neither their eyes for seeing northeir nostrils for breathing the air nor their ears for hearing nor the fingers on their hands for handling nor theirfeet for walking.	15 For they have esteemed all the idols of the heathens for gods, which neither have the use of eyes to see, nor noses to draw breath, nor ears to hear, nor fingers of hands to handle, and as for their feet, they are slow to walk.
16 They have been made, you see, by a human being, modelled by a being whose own breath isborrowed. No man can model a god to resemble himself;	16 For man made them: and he that borroweth his own breath, fashioned them. For no man can make a god like to himself.
17 subject to death, his impious hands can produce only something dead. He himself is worthier thanthe things he worships; he wil at least have lived, but never they.	17 For being mortal himself, he formeth a dead thing with his wicked hands. For he is better than they whom he worshippeth, because he indeed hath lived, though he were mortal, but they never.
18 And they worship even the most loathsome of animals, worse than the rest in their degree ofstupidity,	18 Moreover they worship also the vilest creatures: but things without sense compared to these, are worse than they.
19 without a trace of beauty -- if that is what is attractive in animals- and excluded from God's praisesand blessing.	19 Yea, neither by sight can any man see good of these beasts. But they have fled from the praise of God, and from his blessing.