39. How then can it be thought or claimed that they are gods?
40. Even the Chaldeans themselves have no respect for them; for when they see a deaf mute, unable to speak, they bring forward Bel and expect him to make a sound, as though he could hear.
41. They themselves are unable to reflect and abandon these gods, for they have no sense.
42. And the women, with cords around them, sit by the roads, burning chaff for incense;
43. and whenever one of them is taken aside by some passerby who lies with her, she mocks her neighbor who has not been thought thus worthy, and has not had her cord broken.
44. All that is done for these gods is a fraud; how then can it be thought or claimed that they are gods?
45. They are produced by woodworkers and goldsmiths; they are nothing other than what these artisans wish them to be.
46. Even those who produce them are not long-lived;
47. how then can the things they have produced be gods? They have left frauds and disgrace to their successors.
48. For when war or disaster comes upon them, the priests deliberate among themselves where they can hide with them.
49. How then can one not understand that these are not gods, who save themselves neither from war nor from disaster?
50. Beings that are wooden, gilded and silvered, they will later be known for frauds. To all nations and kings it will be clear that they are not gods, but human handiwork; and that God’s work is not in them.
51. Is it not obvious that they are not gods?