9. But the impious and his impiety are similarly offensive to God.
10. For that which is made, together with him who made it, will suffer torments.
11. Because of this, and according to the idolatries of the nations, there will be no refuge, for the things created by God have been made into hatred, and into a temptation to the souls of men, and into a snare for the feet of the foolish.
12. For the beginning of fornication is the search for idols, and from their invention comes corruption of life.
13. For they neither existed from the beginning, nor will they exist forever.
14. For by the great emptiness of men they came into the world, and therefore their end is soon discovered.
15. For a father, embittered with the suffering of grief, made an image of his son, who had been suddenly taken away from him, and then, he who had died as a man, now begins to be worshiped as if a god, and so rites and sacrifices are established among his servants.
16. Then, in the course of time, iniquity gains strength within this erroneous custom, so that this error has been observed as if it were a law, and this figment has been worshiped at the command of tyrants.
17. And those, whom men could not openly honor because they were far off, a likeness of them was carried from far off, and from it they made a similar image of the king that they wanted to honor, so that, by their solicitude, they might worship he who was absent, just as if he were present.
18. Yet, it passes into their care, and those whom they did not know, they love because of the excellence of the artist.