1 Again, someone preparing to sail, and about to journey over raging waves, calls on a piece of wood more fragile than the vessel that carries him.⁠a 2 For the hunger for profit planned it, and wisdom was the craftsman who built it.

3 Your providence, Father, guides it along, because you made a way even through the sea, and in the waves a safe path, 4 showing that you can save from every danger, so that even a person without skill may put to sea. 5 It is your will that the works of your wisdom should not be ineffective. Therefore people also entrust their lives to a little piece of wood, and passing through the surging waves on a raft come safely to land.

6 For long ago too, when proud giants were perishing, the hope of the world, taking refuge on a raft, left to the world descendants for future generations, guided by your hand.⁠b 7 For blessed is wood through which comes righteousness, 8 but the idol made with hands is cursed, itself and the person who made it, because it was his work, and the perishable thing was called a god. 9 For both the ungodly and his ungodliness are alike hateful to God, 10 for truly the deed will be punished together with him who committed it. 11 Therefore also there will be a judgment on the idols of the nations, because, though formed of things that God created, they were made an abomination, stumbling blocks to people’s souls, and a trap to the feet of the foolish.

The Origins and Consequences of Idolatry

12 For the making of idols was the beginning of sexual immorality, and their invention corrupted life.⁠c 13 For they didn’t exist from the beginning, and they won’t exist forever. 14 For by the human boastfulness they entered into the world, and therefore a swift end was planned for them.

15 For a father worn out by grief over an early death, making an image of the child quickly taken away, now honored him as a god, though he was a dead human being,⁠d and handed down to those under his authority mysteries and solemn rites. 16 Afterward the ungodly custom, which had grown strong over time, was kept as a law, and the engraved images received worship at the commands of princes.

17 And when people could not honor them in person because they lived far away, imagining the likeness from far away, they made a visible image of the king whom they honored, so that their zeal might flatter the absent king as if he were present. 18 But worship intensified even further, even among those who didn’t know him, driven by the ambition of the artist, 19 for he, wishing perhaps to please his ruler, used his skill to force the likeness toward a greater beauty. 20 So the crowd, drawn by the beauty of his craftsmanship, now considers an object of devotion the one who was honored as a man only a little earlier. 21 And this became a trap for human life, because people, enslaved either to calamity or to tyranny, gave stones and wood the Name that shouldn’t be shared.⁠e

22 Afterward it was not enough for them to go astray concerning the knowledge of God, but also, while they live in a great war of ignorance, they call many evils peace. 23 For either slaughtering children in solemn rites, or celebrating secret mysteries, or holding frenzied revels of strange customs, 24 they no longer protect either life or purity of marriage, but one brings on another either death by treachery, or anguish by adultery.⁠f 25 And everything is filled in confusion with blood and murder, theft and deceit, corruption, faithlessness, turmoil, perjury, 26 confusion about what is good, forgetfulness of favors, ingratitude for benefits, defiling of souls, reversal of sexual roles, disorder in marriage, adultery and sexual excess.⁠g

27 For the worship of idols that must not be named is a beginning and cause and end of every evil. 28 For their worshipers either revel to the point of madness, or prophesy lies, or live unrighteously, or lightly commit perjury. 29 For putting their trust in lifeless idols, when they have sworn a wicked oath, they do not expect to suffer harm. 30 But on both counts, the just sentence will pursue them, because they had evil thoughts of God by paying attention to idols, and swore unrighteously in deceit through contempt for holiness. 31 For it is not the power of things by which people swear, but it is the just penalty for those who sin that always punishes the wrongdoing of the unrighteous.