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.
9. Howbeit he has anxious care, Not because his powers must fail, Nor because his span of life is short; But he matcheth himself against goldsmiths and silversmiths, And he imitateth moulders in brass, And esteemeth it glory that he mouldeth counterfeits.
10. His heart is ashes, And his hope of less value than earth, And his life of less honor than clay:
11. Because he was ignorant of him that moulded him, And of him that inspired into him an active soul, And breathed into him a vital spirit.