Wisdom of Solomon 14

1 Again, someone preparing to sail across raging waves calls on a piece of wood more decayed than the ship carrying him. 2 The desire for profit devised the ship, and Wisdom, the craftswoman, constructed it. 3 But your provident care, Father, steers it, for you provided a way even through the sea and a safe path through the waves. 4 You show that you can save from every danger, so that someone may embark even without skill. 5 You do not want the works of your wisdom to lie idle. Therefore people entrust their lives even to the smallest piece of wood, and after crossing the surging sea on a raft, they are saved. 6 In the beginning, when the proud giants were perishing, the hope of the world took refuge on a raft. Guided by your hand, it left the world the seed of a new generation.

7 Blessed is the wood through which righteousness comes about. 8 But a thing made by hands is cursed, along with the one who made it: the craftsman because he made it, and the perishable thing because it was called a god. 9 The ungodly person and his ungodliness are equally hateful to God. 10 What was made will be punished together with the one who made it. 11 Therefore there will be a reckoning even for the nations’ idols, because within God’s creation they became detestable things, stumbling blocks for human souls, and traps for the feet of fools.

12 The invention of idols was the beginning of sexual immorality, and their discovery corrupted life. 13 They did not exist from the beginning, nor will they exist forever. 14 They entered the world through human vanity, and therefore a swift end was appointed for them.

15 A father worn down by untimely grief made an image of a child taken from him too soon. He then honored as a god the person who had died and handed down secret rites and ceremonies to those under his authority. 16 Over time this ungodly custom grew strong and was observed as law. 17 Carved images were also worshiped at the commands of tyrants. Because people lived far away and could not honor him in person, they reproduced his distant appearance and made a visible image of the honored king, so that by their zeal they might flatter the absent man as though he were present. 18 The craftsman’s ambition drew even those who did not know any better into increasingly intense worship. 19 Wanting perhaps to please the one in power, the craftsman used all his skill to make the likeness more beautiful than the man himself. 20 The crowd, attracted by the charm of the workmanship, now regarded as an object of worship the man they had honored only a short time before. 21 This became a trap for human life, because people enslaved by misfortune or tyranny gave the name that cannot be shared to stones and pieces of wood.

22 It was not enough for them to go astray in their knowledge of God. While living in the great conflict of ignorance, they call so many evils peace. 23 They perform rites that kill children, secret ceremonies, and frenzied celebrations of strange customs. 24 They no longer keep either life or marriage pure. One person treacherously kills another or causes him pain through adultery. 25 Everything is mixed together: blood and murder, theft and deceit, corruption, faithlessness, turmoil, and perjury; 26 confusion about what is good, forgetfulness of favor, defilement of souls, confusion over sex, disorder in marriages, adultery, and shameless indecency.

27 The worship of nameless idols is the beginning, cause, and end of every evil. 28 Their worshipers either rave in their celebrations, prophesy lies, live unrighteously, or readily swear false oaths. 29 Because they trust lifeless idols, they do not expect any harm to come from swearing falsely. 30 But just penalties will overtake them for both offenses: they thought wrongly about God by devoting themselves to idols, and they swore deceitful and unrighteous oaths in contempt of holiness. 31 The power of the things by which they swear does not punish them. Rather, the just penalty for sinners always pursues the wrongdoing of the unrighteous.