Wisdom 15

NEW JERUSALEM	CATHOLIC PUBLIC DOMAIN
1 But you, our God, are kind and true, slow to anger, governing the universe with mercy.	1 But you, our God, are gracious and true, patient, and in mercy ordering all things.
2 Even if we sin, we are yours, since we acknowledge your power, but we wil not sin, knowing we countas yours.	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.
3 To know you is indeed the perfect virtue, and to know your power is the root of immortality.	3 For to have known you is perfect justice, and to know justice and your virtue 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 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,
5 the sight of which sets fools yearning and hankering for the lifeless form of an unbreathing image.	5 the sight of which gives desire to the foolish, and he loves the likeness of a lifeless image without a soul.
6 Lovers of evil and worthy of such hopes are those who make them, those who want them and thosewho worship them.	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.
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 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.
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 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.
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 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.
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 is worthless dirt, and his life is more common 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 because he ignores the One who molded him, and who instilled in him a working soul, and who 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 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.
13 He, more than any other, knows he is sinning, he who from one earthy stuff makes both brittle potsand idols.	13 For, above all else, he knows himself to be lacking, who, from fragile material of the earth forms vessels and graven images.
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 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 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 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.
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 who borrowed his own breath, formed them. For no man will be able to form God in the likeness of 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, 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.
18 And they worship even the most loathsome of animals, worse than the rest in their degree ofstupidity,	18 Moreover, they worship the most miserable animals, for, to make a foolish comparison, these others are worse.
19 without a trace of beauty -- if that is what is attractive in animals- and excluded from God's praisesand blessing.	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.