Isaiah 44:18

The wise and eloquent people among the pagans are full of admiration for a well-turned phrase. One of their main preoccupations is with elegance of expression. They are filled with the greatest enthusiasm for good style and take great pride in verbal dexterity. The base material of their poets is merely lies fashioned in rhythms and meters for grace and harmony, but for truth they have little if any regard. I would say that they are sick from the lack of any true or proper notion of the nature and reality of God.… And God said of them through the voice of Isaiah, "Know that their hearts are dust and that they have erred." … As for the inventors of impure heresies, those profaners and apostates who have opened their mouths against the divine glory, "those who have uttered perverted things," we could accuse them of having slipped in their madness as low as the foolish pagans; perhaps they have slipped even lower, for it would have been better never to have known the way of sacred truth than once to have known it, to have turned away from the sacred commandment that was handed on to them.

(Verse 6 and following) This is what the Lord, the king of Israel and his redeemer, the Lord of hosts, says: I am the first and I am the last, and there is no God besides me. Who is like me? Let him call and declare, and lay out the order for me, since I established the ancient people: what is coming and what will happen, let them declare to them. Do not be afraid, nor be troubled: from that time I have made you hear and announced it; you are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me, and a creator whom I do not know? All the idols of the nations are worthless, and the things they love do not profit them. They themselves are witnesses to their own worthlessness, for they do not see or understand, so that they may be put to shame. Who formed a god or cast an idol that is profitable for nothing? Look, all his companions shall be put to shame; the craftsmen are mere men. Let them all assemble, let them stand forth. They shall be terrified; they shall be put to shame together. The blacksmith takes a tool and works it with the coals; he fashions it with hammers and works it with his strong arm. He will be hungry and will become weak, he will not drink water, and he will grow weary. The carpenter extends the rule (or the form), he shapes it on the plane, he forms it with angles, and rounds it off with a compass. And he makes an image of a man, like a handsome man dwelling in a house. He cuts down cedars, he takes an oak, and a tree that stood among the woods. He plants a pine, which the rain nourishes, and it becomes fuel for men. He takes from them, and warms himself; he kindles it, and bakes bread. But the rest of it he made into a god and worshipped; he made an idol and bowed down to it. He burned half of it in the fire and cooked meat on it; he roasted a stew and ate it, and then he was satisfied. He warmed himself and said, 'Ah! […]

Second, he shows the blindness of the craftsman: they have not known. Part thereof, of the wood from which the idol was made, now is ashes, for it was burned. Perhaps there is a lie in my right hand, that is, in my working: he …

In short, it is the effect and evidence of the greatest stupidity and sottishness that one could ever imagine rational beings to be guilty of, and shows that man has become worse than the beasts that perish; for they act according to the dictates of sense, but man acts not according to the dictates of reason (

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — unbalanced-parens

): They have not known nor understood common sense; men that act rationally in other things in this act most absurdly. Though they have some knowledge and understanding, yet they are strangers to, nay, they are rebels against the great law of consideration (

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation