Wisdom 14:10–18

¹⁰for truly the deed will be punished together with him who committed it.↗

¹¹Therefore also there will be a visitation among the idols of the nation, because, though formed of things which God created, they were made an abomination, stumbling blocks to the souls of men, and a snare to the feet of the foolish.↗

¹²For the devising of idols was the beginning of fornication, and the invention of them the corruption of life.↗

¹³For they didn’t exist from the beginning, and they won’t exist forever.↗

¹⁴For by the boastfulness of men they entered into the world, and therefore a speedy end was planned for them.↗

¹⁵For a father worn with untimely grief, making an image of the child quickly taken away, now honored him as a god which was then a dead human being, and delivered to those that were under him mysteries and solemn rites.↗

¹⁶Afterward the ungodly custom, in process of time grown strong, was kept as a law, and the engraved images received worship by the commandments of princes.↗

¹⁷And when men could not honor them in presence because they lived far off, imagining the likeness from afar, they made a visible image of the king whom they honored, that by their zeal they might flatter the absent as if present.↗

¹⁸But worship was raised to a yet higher pitch, even by those who didn’t know him, urged forward by the ambition of the architect;↗