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Again, one preparing to sail, and about to journey over raging waves,
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For the hunger for profit planned it,
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Your providence, O Father, guides it along,
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showing that you can save out of every danger,
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It is your will that the works of your wisdom should not be ineffective.
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For[a] in the old time also, when proud giants were perishing,
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For blessed is wood through which comes righteousness;
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but the idol made with hands is accursed, itself and he that made it;
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For both the ungodly and his ungodliness are alike hateful to God;
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for truly the deed will be punished together with him who committed it.
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Therefore also there will be a visitation among the idols of the nation,
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For the devising of idols was the beginning of fornication,
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For they didn’t exist from the beginning, and they won’t exist forever.
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For by the boastfulness of men they entered into the world,
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For a father worn with untimely grief,
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Afterward the ungodly custom, in process of time grown strong, was kept as a law,
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And when men could not honor them in presence because they lived far off,
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But worship was raised to a yet higher pitch, even by those who didn’t know him,
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for he, wishing perhaps to please his ruler,
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So the multitude, allured by reason of the grace of his handiwork,
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And this became an ambush,
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Afterward it was not enough for them to go astray concerning the knowledge of God,
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For either slaughtering children in solemn rites, or celebrating secret mysteries,
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no longer do they guard either life or purity of marriage,
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And all things confusedly are filled with blood and murder, theft and deceit,
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confusion about what is good, forgetfulness of favors,
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For the worship of idols that may not be named [b]
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For their worshipers either make merry to madness, or prophesy lies,
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For putting their trust in lifeless idols,
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But on both counts, the just doom will pursue them,
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For it is not the power of things by which men swear,