Day 191: The Wisdom of Solomon 12 - 15

Chapter 12

1: For your immortal spirit is in all things. 

2: Therefore you correct little by little those who trespass, and you remind and warn them of the things through which they sin, so that they may be freed from wickedness and put their trust in you, O Lord. 

3: Those who lived long ago in your holy land 

4: you hated for their detestable practices, their works of sorcery and unholy rites, 

5: their merciless slaughter of children, and their sacrificial feasting on human flesh and blood. These initiates from the midst of a heathen cult, 

6: these parents who murder helpless lives, you willed to destroy by the hands of our ancestors, 

7: so that the land most precious of all to you might receive a worthy colony of the servants of God. 

8: But even these you spared, since they were but mortals, and sent wasps as forerunners of your army to destroy them little by little, 

9: though you were not unable to give the ungodly into the hands of the righteous in battle, or to destroy them at one blow by dread wild animals or your stern word. 

10: But judging them little by little you gave them an opportunity to repent, though you were not unaware that their origin was evil and their wickedness inborn, and that their way of thinking would never change. 

11: For they were an accursed race from the beginning, and it was not through fear of anyone that you left them unpunished for their sins. 

12: For who will say, ‘What have you done?’ or will resist your judgement? Who will accuse you for the destruction of nations that you made? Or who will come before you to plead as an advocate for the unrighteous? 

13: For neither is there any god besides you, whose care is for all people, to whom you should prove that you have not judged unjustly; 

14: nor can any king or monarch confront you about those whom you have punished. 

15: You are righteous and you rule all things righteously, deeming it alien to your power
to condemn anyone who does not deserve to be punished. 

16: For your strength is the source of righteousness, and your sovereignty over all causes you to spare all. 

17: For you show your strength when people doubt the completeness of your power,
and you rebuke any insolence among those who know it. 

18: Although you are sovereign in strength, you judge with mildness, and with great forbearance you govern us; for you have power to act whenever you choose. 

19: Through such works you have taught your people that the righteous must be kind, and you have filled your children with good hope, because you give repentance for sins. 

20: For if you punished with such great care and indulgence the enemies of your servants and those deserving of death, granting them time and opportunity to give up their wickedness, 

21: with what strictness you have judged your children, to whose ancestors you gave oaths and covenants full of good promises! 

22: So while chastening us you scourge our enemies ten thousand times more, so that, when we judge, we may meditate upon your goodness, and when we are judged, we may expect mercy. 

23: Therefore those who lived unrighteously, in a life of folly, you tormented through their own abominations. 

24: For they went far astray on the paths of error, accepting as gods those animals that even their enemies despised; they were deceived like foolish infants. 

25: Therefore, as though to children who cannot reason, you sent your judgement to mock them. 

26: But those who have not heeded the warning of mild rebukes will experience the deserved judgement of God. 

27: For when in their suffering they became incensed at those creatures that they had thought to be gods, being punished by means of them, they saw and recognized as the true God the one whom they had before refused to know. Therefore the utmost condemnation came upon them. 

Chapter 13

1: For all people who were ignorant of God were foolish by nature; and they were unable from the good things that are seen to know the one who exists, nor did they recognize the artisan while paying heed to his works; 

2: but they supposed that either fire or wind or swift air, or the circle of the stars, or turbulent water, or the luminaries of heaven were the gods that rule the world. 

3: If through delight in the beauty of these things people assumed them to be gods, let them know how much better than these is their Lord, for the author of beauty created them. 

4: And if people were amazed at their power and working, let them perceive from them
how much more powerful is the one who formed them. 

5: For from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator. 

6: Yet these people are little to be blamed, for perhaps they go astray while seeking God and desiring to find him. 

7: For while they live among his works, they keep searching, and they trust in what they see, because the things that are seen are beautiful. 

8: Yet again, not even they are to be excused; 

9: for if they had the power to know so much that they could investigate the world, how did they fail to find sooner the Lord of these things? 

10: But miserable, with their hopes set on dead things, are those who give the name ‘gods’ to the works of human hands, gold and silver fashioned with skill, and likenesses of animals, or a useless stone, the work of an ancient hand. 

11: A skilled woodcutter may saw down a tree easy to handle and skillfully strip off all its bark, and then with pleasing workmanship make a useful vessel that serves life’s needs, 

12: and burn the cast-off pieces of his work to prepare his food, and eat his fill. 

13: But a cast-off piece from among them, useful for nothing, a stick crooked and full of knots, he takes and carves with care in his leisure, and shapes it with skill gained in idleness; he forms it in the likeness of a human being, 

14: or makes it like some worthless animal, giving it a coat of red paint and colouring its surface red and covering every blemish in it with paint; 

15: then he makes a suitable niche for it, and sets it in the wall, and fastens it there with iron. 

16: He takes thought for it, so that it may not fall, because he knows that it cannot help itself, for it is only an image and has need of help. 

17: When he prays about possessions and his marriage and children, he is not ashamed to address a lifeless thing. 

18: For health he appeals to a thing that is weak; for life he prays to a thing that is dead;
for aid he entreats a thing that is utterly inexperienced; for a prosperous journey, a thing that cannot take a step; 

19: for money-making and work and success with his hands he asks strength of a thing whose hands have no strength. 

Chapter 14

1: Again, one preparing to sail and about to voyage over raging waves
calls upon a piece of wood more fragile than the ship that carries him.
2: For it was desire for gain that planned that vessel, and wisdom was the artisan who built it;
3: but it is your providence, O Father, that steers its course, because you have given it a path in the sea,
and a safe way through the waves,
4: showing that you can save from every danger, so that even a person who lacks skill may put to sea.
5: It is your will that works of your wisdom should not be without effect; therefore people trust their lives even to the smallest piece of wood, and passing through the billows on a raft they come safely to land.
6: For even in the beginning, when arrogant giants were perishing,
the hope of the world took refuge on a raft,
and guided by your hand left to the world the seed of a new generation.
7: For blessed is the wood by which righteousness comes. 

8: But the idol made with hands is accursed, and so is the one who made it— he for having made it, and the perishable thing because it was named a god.
9: For equally hateful to God are the ungodly and their ungodliness;
10: for what was done will be punished together with the one who did it.
11: Therefore there will be a visitation also upon the heathen idols, because, though part of what God created, they became an abomination, snares for human souls and a trap for the feet of the foolish. 

12: For the idea of making idols was the beginning of fornication,
and the invention of them was the corruption of life;
13: for they did not exist from the beginning, nor will they last for ever.
14: For through human vanity 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; he now honoured as a god what was once a dead human being, and handed on to his dependants secret rites and initiations.
16: Then the ungodly custom, grown strong with time, was kept as a law,
and at the command of monarchs carved images were worshipped.
17: When people 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 artisan 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 human being.
21: And this became a hidden trap for humankind, because people, in bondage to misfortune or to royal authority, bestowed on objects of stone or wood the name that ought not to be shared.

22: Then it was not enough for them to err about the knowledge of God,
but though living in great strife due to ignorance, they call such great evils peace.
23: For whether they kill children in their initiations, or celebrate secret mysteries, or hold frenzied revels with strange customs,
24: they no longer keep either their lives or their marriages pure, but they either treacherously kill one another, or grieve one another by adultery,
25: and all is a raging riot of blood and murder, theft and deceit, corruption, faithlessness, tumult, perjury,
26: confusion over what is good, forgetfulness of favours,
defiling of souls, sexual perversion,
disorder in marriages, adultery, and debauchery.
27: For the worship of idols not to be named is the beginning and cause and end of every evil.
28: For their worshippers either rave in exultation, or prophesy lies, or live unrighteously, or readily commit perjury;
29: for because they trust in lifeless idols they swear wicked oaths and expect to suffer no harm.
30: But just penalties will overtake them on two counts: because they thought wrongly about God in devoting themselves to idols,
and because in deceit they swore unrighteously through contempt for holiness.
31: For it is not the power of the things by which people swear,
but the just penalty for those who sin, that always pursues the transgression of the unrighteous. 

Chapter 15

1: But you, our God, are kind and true, patient, and ruling all things in mercy.
2: For even if we sin we are yours, knowing your power; but we will not sin, because we know that you acknowledge us as yours.
3: For to know you is complete righteousness, and to know your power is the root of immortality.
4: For neither has the evil intent of human art misled us, nor the fruitless toil of painters,
a figure stained with varied colours,
5: whose appearance arouses yearning in fools, so that they desire the lifeless form of a dead image.
6: Lovers of evil things and fit for such objects of hope are those who either make or desire or worship them. 

7: A potter kneads the soft earth
and laboriously moulds each vessel for our service, fashioning out of the same clay both the vessels that serve clean uses and those for contrary uses, making all alike;
but which shall be the use of each of them the worker in clay decides.
8: With misspent toil, these workers form a futile god from the same clay— these mortals who were made of earth a short time before and after a little while go to the earth from which all mortals are taken, when the time comes to return the souls that were borrowed.
9: But the workers are not concerned that mortals are destined to die or that their life is brief,
but they compete with workers in gold and silver, and imitate workers in copper; and they count it a glorious thing to mould counterfeit gods.
10: Their heart is ashes, their hope is cheaper than dirt, and their lives are of less worth than clay,
11: because they failed to know the one who formed them and inspired them with active souls and breathed a living spirit into them.
12: But they considered our existence an idle game, and life a festival held for profit, for they say one must get money however one can, even by base means.
13: For these people, more than all others, know that they sin when they make from earthy matter fragile vessels and carved images. 

14: But most foolish, and more miserable than an infant, are all the enemies who oppressed your people.
15: For they thought that all their heathen idols were gods, though these have neither the use of their eyes to see with, nor nostrils with which to draw breath, nor ears with which to hear, nor fingers to feel with, and their feet are of no use for walking.
16: For a human being made them,
and one whose spirit is borrowed formed them; for none can form gods that are like themselves.
17: People are mortal, and what they make with lawless hands is dead;
for they are better than the objects they worship, since they have life, but the idols never had. 

18: Moreover, they worship even the most hateful animals, which are worse than all others when judged by their lack of intelligence;
19: and even as animals they are not so beautiful in appearance that one would desire them,
but they have escaped both the praise of God and his blessing.