Anonymous (Septuagint) · a new plain-English translation from the original language
1| For all people are foolish by nature who are without knowledge of God, and who from the good things that are seen were not able to know him who is, nor by attending to his works did they recognize the craftsman.
2| Instead they took fire, or wind, or the fast-moving air, or the sphere of stars, or the raging waters, or the lamps of the sky, to be divine rulers of the cosmos.
3| If, charmed by the loveliness of these, they took them for divinities, they ought to have realized how far superior their Sovereign is, since it was the source of all beauty who fashioned them.
4| And if they were amazed at their power and working, let them understand from these how much more powerful is he who fashioned them.
5| For from the greatness and beauty of created things their maker is, by analogy, seen.
6| Yet for these there is but little blame, for perhaps even they go astray while seeking God and wishing to find him.
7| For as they move about among his works they search diligently, and they are persuaded by appearance, because the things seen are beautiful.
8| And yet again, not even they are to be excused.
9| For if they had power to know so much that they could take the measure of the world, how did they not more quickly find the Lord of these things?
10| But wretched, and their hopes set on dead things, are those who called gods the works of human hands, gold and silver, the product of skilled craft, and likenesses of animals, or a useless stone, the work of an ancient hand.
11| And if some woodcutter, a carpenter, saws down a tree easy to move, and skillfully strips off all its bark, and shapes it with fair workmanship into a vessel useful for the service of life,
12| and having used up the offcuts of his labor to prepare his food, he is filled;
13| then, taking what is left over from these, useful for nothing, a crooked piece of wood full of knots, he carves it with the diligence of his idle hours, and shapes it with the skill of his leisure, he makes it resemble the image of a man,
14| or likens it to some worthless animal, smearing it with red ochre and coloring its surface red with paint, and smearing over every blemish that is in it.
15| And having made for it a shrine worthy of it, he sets it in the wall, securing it with iron.
16| So then he takes care beforehand that it should not fall down, knowing that it is unable to help itself, for indeed it is an image and has need of help.
17| Yet praying about his possessions and his marriage and his children, he feels no shame addressing a lifeless object; and for health he calls upon the thing that is weak,
18| and for life he begs from the thing that is dead, and for aid he entreats the thing that is utterly without experience, and for a journey he asks the thing that cannot even use its own feet,
19| and for gain and business and success of his hands he asks strength for his hands from the thing that is most without strength of all.