| DB1 | | Origins of idolatry. Wis.14.12-21 | KNSB Contents | notes| 14 | katapi NEW STUDY BIBLE | Passage | Old Testament in Greek (Septuagint) |
| 12 | For the idea of making idols was the beginning of fornication, and the invention of them was the corruption of life, | Origins of idolatry. Wis.14.12-21 | |
| 13 | for neither have they existed from the beginning nor will they exist for ever. | ||
| 14 | For through the vanity of men they entered the world, and therefore their speedy end has been planned. | ||
| 15 | For a father, consumed with grief at an untimely bereavement, made an image of his child, who had been suddenly taken from him; and he now honoured as a god what was once a dead human being, and handed on to his dependents secret rites and initiations. | ||
| 16 | Then the ungodly custom, grown strong with time, was kept as a law, and at the command of monarchs graven images were worshipped. | ||
| 17 | When men could not honour monarchs in their presence, since they lived at a distance, they imagined their appearance far away, and made a visible image of the king whom they honoured, so that by their zeal they might flatter the absent one as though present. | ||
| 18 | Then the ambition of the craftsman impelled even those who did not know the king to intensify their worship. | ||
| 19 | For he, perhaps wishing to please his ruler, skilfully forced the likeness to take more beautiful form, | ||
| 20 | and the multitude, attracted by the charm of his work, now regarded as an object of worship the one whom shortly before they had honoured as a man. | ||
| 21 | And this became a hidden trap for mankind, because men, in bondage to misfortune or to royal authority, bestowed on objects of stone or wood the name that ought not to be shared. | ||