Wisdom of Solomon, chapter 15

15:1 - 19 (translated by Edgar J. Goodspeed)
But You, our God, are kind and true, You are long-suffering and govern everything/the universe in mercy. For even if we sin, we are Yours and know Your might; but we will not sin, for we know that we are accounted Yours. For to know You is perfect uprightness, and to recognize Your might is the root of immortality. For no artful device of men has led us astray, nor the fruitless labor of scene-painters, a figure smeared with varied colors, the appearance of which leads to desire in fools, and they long for the lifeless form of a dead image. Lovers of evil and deserving of such hopes/objects of hopes are those who make them and those who feel desire for them and those who worship them.
For a potter, molding the soft earth, laboriously shapes each object for our use; why, from the same clay he forms dishes to serve clean purposes, and those of the opposite kind, all alike; but of what use shall be made of either, the potter is the judge. And with misdirected toil he shapes a futile god out of the same clay, and having shortly before sprung from the earth, after a little goes to that from which he was taken, when he is called upon to return the soul that was lent him. But he is concerned, not because he will grow tired, nor because his life is short, but he competes with gold- and silversmiths, and copies those who mold brass, and thinks it a glory that he can form counterfeits. His heart is ashes, and his hope cheaper than dirt, and his life more worthless than clay, for he has not recognized the One who formed him, and inspired him with an active soul, and breathed into him the breath of life. But they consider our existence play, and life a lucrative fair, for they say, one must make money any way one can, even by evil. For this man knows better than all others that he sins, producing from earthy material fragile dishes and carved images. But most foolish, and more wretched than a baby's soul, are all those enemies of Your people, who oppress them, for they consider all the idols of the heathen gods, which can neither use eyes to see with, nor noses to inhale the air, nor ears to hear with, nor fingers on their hands to feel with, and their feet are of no use to walk on. For a man made them, and one whose own spirit is borrowed formed them; for no man can form a god like him; for mortal as he is, what he makes with his lawless hands is dead; for they are better than the things they worship, for of the two, they have life, but the idols never had. Why, they worship even the most hateful animals; for by comparison, they are worse than the other animals in their lack of intelligence; nor are they in their appearance as animals so beautiful as to be desired, but they have escaped both the praise of God and His blessing.