Book V - Snyder Bible

The Preaching of Simeon Kefa 187
Begin, therefore, to cast out of your minds the vain ideas
of idols, and your useless and empty fears, that at the same
time you may also escape the condition of unrighteous bondage.
For those have become your masters who could not
even have been profitable servants to you. For how should
lifeless images seem fit even to serve you, when they can neither
hear, nor see, nor feel anything? Yea, even the material of
which they are made, whether it be gold or silver, or even
brass or wood, though it might have profited you for necessary
uses, you have rendered wholly inefficient and useless by
fashioning Elohim out of it. We therefore declare to you the
true worship of Elohim, and at the same time warn and exhort
the worshippers that by good deeds they imitate Him whom
they worship, and hasten to return to His image and likeness,
as we said before.
Chapter XV: Folly of Idolatry
But I should like if those who worship idols would tell me
if they wish to become like those whom they worship! Does
any one of you wish to see in such sort as they see, or to hear
after the manner of their hearing, or to have such understanding
as they have? Far be this from any of my hearers! For this
were rather to be thought a curse and a reproach to a man
who bears in himself the image of Elohim, although he has lost
the likeness. What sort of elohim, then, are they to be reckoned,
the imitation of whom would be execrable to their worshippers,
and to have whose likeness would be a reproach?
What then? Melt your useless images, and make useful vessels.
Melt the unserviceable and inactive metal, and make implements
fit for the use of men. But, says one, human laws do not
allow us. He says well; for it is human laws, and not their own
power, that prevents it. What kind of Elohim, then, are those
which are defended by human laws, and not by their own
energies? And so also they are preserved from thieves by
watchdogs and the protection of bolts, at least if they be of silver,
or gold, or even of brass; for those that are of stone and
earthenware are protected by their own worthlessness, for no