5. But, so that the works of your wisdom might not be empty, therefore, men trust their souls even to a little piece of wood, and, crossing over the sea by raft, they are set free.
6. But, from the beginning, when the proud giants were perishing, the hope of the world, fleeing by boat, gave back to future ages a seed of birth, which was governed by your hand.
7. For blessed is the wood through which justice is made.
8. But, through the hand that makes the idol, both it, and he who made it, is accursed: he, indeed, because it has been served by him, and it, because, though it is fragile, it is called 'god.'
9. But the impious and his impiety are similarly offensive to God.
10. For that which is made, together with him who made it, will suffer torments.
11. Because of this, and according to the idolatries of the nations, there will be no refuge, for the things created by God have been made into hatred, and into a temptation to the souls of men, and into a snare for the feet of the foolish.
12. For the beginning of fornication is the search for idols, and from their invention comes corruption of life.
13. For they neither existed from the beginning, nor will they exist forever.
14. For by the great emptiness of men they came into the world, and therefore their end is soon discovered.
15. For a father, embittered with the suffering of grief, made an image of his son, who had been suddenly taken away from him, and then, he who had died as a man, now begins to be worshiped as if a god, and so rites and sacrifices are established among his servants.
16. Then, in the course of time, iniquity gains strength within this erroneous custom, so that this error has been observed as if it were a law, and this figment has been worshiped at the command of tyrants.
17. And those, whom men could not openly honor because they were far off, a likeness of them was carried from far off, and from it they made a similar image of the king that they wanted to honor, so that, by their solicitude, they might worship he who was absent, just as if he were present.
18. Yet, it passes into their care, and those whom they did not know, they love because of the excellence of the artist.
19. For he, wishing to please the one who hired him, embellished his art, so as to fashion a better likeness.
20. But the multitude of men, brought together by the beauty of the work, now considered him to be a god, whom they had formerly honored as a man.