1. But you, our God, are gracious and true, Longsuffering, and in mercy ordering all things.
2. For even if we sin, we are your, knowing your dominion; But we shall not sin, knowing that we have been accounted your:
3. For to be acquainted with you is perfect righteousness, And to know your dominion is the root of immortality.
4. For neither were we led astray by any evil device of men’s are, Nor yet by painters’ fruitless labor, A form stained with varied colors;
5. The sight whereof leads fools into lust: Their desire is for the breathless form of a dead image.
6. Lovers of evil things, and worthy of such hopes as these, Are both they that do, and they that desire, and they that worship.
7. For a potter, kneading soft earth, Laboriously mouldeth each several vessel for our service: Nay, out of the same clay does he fashion Both the vessels that minister to clean uses, and those of a contrary sort, All in like manner; But what shall be the use of each vessel of either sort, The craftsman himself is the judge.
8. And also, laboring to an evil end, he mouldeth a vain god out of the same clay, He who, having but a little before been made of earth, After a short space goes his way to the earth out of which he was taken, When he is required to render back the soul which was lent him.