15:1 But thou, O God, art gracious and true, longsuffering, and in mercy ordering all things,
15:2 For if we sin, we are thine, knowing thy power: but we will not sin, knowing that we are counted thine.
15:3 For to know thee is perfect righteousness: yea, to know thy power is the root of immortality.
15:4 For neither did the mischievous invention of men deceive us, nor an image spotted with divers colours, the painter’s fruitless labour;
15:5 The sight whereof enticeth fools to lust after it, and so they desire the form of a dead image, that hath no breath.
15:6 Both they that make them, they that desire them, and they that worship them, are lovers of evil things, and are worthy to have such things to trust upon.
15:7 For the potter, tempering soft earth, fashioneth every vessel with much labour for our service: yea, of the same clay he maketh both the vessels that serve for clean uses, and likewise also all such as serve to the contrary: but what is the use of either sort, the potter himself is the judge.
15:8 And employing his labours lewdly, he maketh a vain god of the same clay, even he which a little before was made of earth himself, and within a little while after returneth to the same, out when his life which was lent him shall be demanded.
15:9 Notwithstanding his care is, not that he shall have much labour, nor that his life is short: but striveth to excel goldsmiths and silversmiths, and endeavoureth to do like the workers in brass, and counteth it his glory to make counterfeit things.
15:10 His heart is ashes, his hope is more vile than earth, and his life of less value than clay: