31. But they roar, shouting out to their gods, just as at a feast for the dead.
32. The priests take away the garments of their gods, and clothe their wives and their sons.
33. And whether they endure evil from someone, or good, they are not able to repay it. They can neither establish a king, nor remove him.
34. Similarly, they can neither give riches, nor avenge evil. If anyone makes a vow to them, and does not keep it, they cannot require it.
35. They cannot free a man from death, nor rescue the weak from the strong.
36. They cannot restore sight to the blind, nor free a man from need.
37. They will not have mercy on the widow, nor do good to orphans.
38. Their gods of wood, and of stone, and of gold, and of silver, are like stones from the mountain; and those who worship them will be confounded.
39. In what way, then, is it to be supposed or said that they are gods?
40. For even the Chaldeans themselves do not honor these, who, when they hear about a mute, unable to speak, they offer him to Bel, asking from him that he may speak,
41. as if these, who are unable to move, would be able to perceive. And even they themselves, when they shall understand this, will abandon them, for, having come to their senses, they do not consider them to be gods.
42. Yet the women, wrapped in cords, sit by the roads, burning olive-stones.
43. And when any one of them, having been attracted by someone passing by, would sleep with him, she reproaches her neighbor because she was not found worthy, as she was, nor was her cord broken.
44. But all things that occur with them are false; in what way, then, is it to be considered or said that they are gods?
45. Yet they have been made by the workmen and the goldsmiths. They will be nothing else but what the priests want them to be.