2 Even if we sin, we will still belong to you because we know your power. But we won’t sin, since you consider us as your own.
3 Perfection of life is to know you. To recognize your power is the root from which everlasting life grows.
4 The misguided art of humans didn’t deceive us, nor did the fruitless labor of clever painters even when they created an image that was dazzling in its combination of colors.
5 The sight of idols, however, creates desire in fools. They begin to long for a dead statue’s lifeless image.
6 Those who make them, those who want them, and those who worship them are all lovers of wicked things. They all deserve to have their hopes misdirected in this way.
7 The potters take great pains to mold the clay. They make each piece for our use. They make some containers to be used for holy purposes. Others will be used for ordinary purposes. Both pieces are made from the same clay, and both are made in the same way. But the use to which each is put is left up to the judgment of the potter.
8 The potters takes great care—but it is an evil care!—to design a useless god from the very same clay that only a moment before had come from the same earth from which the potters themselves also had been taken. It is the same earth to which the potters will one day return when their entire being’s debt has to be paid back.