18. But the artist’s desire to be recognized for his work also incited the fools to an ever greater intensity of worship.
19. Perhaps out of a desire to please the person in power, the artist makes the most of his artistic skill to fashion an even more beautiful and perfect image.
20. The masses, charmed by the object’s workmanship, now begin to consider the object worthy of their worship, where not long before they had only honored the person as a human being.
21. In this way idolatry becomes a trap for one’s life. Whether it is because of a father’s misfortune or because people are ordered to do so, stones and plants begin to be called by the name that was never supposed to be shared with anything or anyone else.
22. Then, as if it weren’t enough that they should err concerning the knowledge of God, other things follow. When living ignorantly in the midst of great war, people call such evil things peace.
23. Then, in the celebration of secret religious ceremonies involving the ritual murder of children or in hidden mysteries or in the mad orgies of strange worship practices,
24. people stop keeping their lives and their marriages pure. Instead, one person plots to kill another by lying in ambush. Another person causes grief by becoming sexually involved with another person’s spouse.
25. Everything becomes a confused mix of blood, murder, theft, and deception. Corruption, breaking one’s word, upheaval, false pledges—all these things abound.