16. Afterward the ungodly custom, in process of time grown strong, was kept as a law, And by the commandments of princes the graven images received worship.
17. And 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.
18. But to a yet higher pitch was worship raised even by them that knew him not, Urged forward by the ambition of the artificer:
19. For he, wishing perhaps to please one in authority, Used his are to force the likeness toward a greater beauty;
20. And the multitude, allured by reason of the grace of his handywork, Now accounted as an object of devotion him that a little before was honored as a man.
21. And this became a hidden danger to life, Because men, in bondage either to calamity or to tyranny, Invested stones and stocks with the incommunicable Name.