What Scripture Says About Images

But better testimony about all this is given by Holy Scripture, which tells us beforehand when it says: “Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have eyes, but will not see; they have a mouth, but will not speak; they have ears, but will not hear; they have noses, but will not smell; they have hands, but will not handle; they have feet, but will not walk; they will not speak through their throat. May those who make them become like them.” Nor have they escaped the rebuke of the prophets, for there too is their refutation, where the Spirit says: “Those who formed a god will be ashamed, and all who carved what is worthless; and all by whom they were made have dried up. Let the deaf among men all gather and stand up together, and let them be confounded and put to shame together. For the carpenter sharpened iron and worked it with an adze, and shaped it with a drill, and set it up by the strength of his arm; and he will be hungry and faint, and drink no water. “For the carpenter chose out wood and marked it out by a rule, and shaped it with glue, and made it in the form of a man and like the beauty of a man, and set it up in his house: wood that he had cut from the grove, which the Lord planted and the rain made grow, so that it might be for people to burn, and that he might take some of it and warm himself, and kindle it and bake bread on it. But the rest they made into gods and worshiped them, though half of it they had burned in the fire. “And on half of it he roasted meat and ate and was filled, and was warmed and said, ‘It is pleasant to me, because I am warmed and have seen the fire.’ But the rest of it he worshiped, saying, ‘Rescue me, for you are my god.’ “They did not know or understand, because their eyes were dimmed so that they could not see or perceive with their heart. Nor did he consider in his heart or know in his understanding that he had burned half of it in the fire, and baked bread on its coals, and roasted meat and eaten it, and made the rest of it an abomination, and they worship it. Know that their heart is dust, and they are deceived, and no one can rescue his soul. Look! Will you not say, ‘There is a lie in my right hand’?” [a]

How then can they fail to be judged godless by everyone, when even the divine Scripture accuses them of impiety? How can they be anything but wretched, when they are so openly convicted of worshiping dead things instead of the truth? What hope do they have? Or what excuse could be made for them, when they trust in things without sense or movement, which they revere in place of the true God?