14. We would here, as if all nations on the earth were present, make one speech, and pour into the ears of them all, words which should be heard in common:^46734673    [Isa. xl. 18–20; xliv. 9–20; xlvi. 5–8.] Why, pray, is this, O men! that of your own accord you cheat and deceive yourselves by voluntary blindness? Dispel the darkness now, and, returning to the light of the mind, look more closely and see what that is which is going on, if only you retain your right,^46744674    i.e., the faculty of discernment, which is properly man’s. and are not beyond the reach^46754675    Lit., “are in the limits of.” of the reason and prudence given to you.^46764676    The ms. reads his—“these”, emended, as above, vobis in the margin of Ursinus, Elm., and LB. Those images which fill you with terror, and which you adore prostrate upon the ground^46774677    Lit., “and humble.” in all the temples, are bones, stones, brass, silver, gold, clay, wood taken from a tree, or glue mixed with gypsum. Having been heaped together, it may be, from a harlot’s gauds or from a woman’s^46784678    i.e., a respectable woman. ornaments, from camels’ bones or from the tooth of the Indian beast,^46794679    i.e., the elephant’s tusk. from cooking-pots and little jars, from candlesticks and lamps, or from other less cleanly vessels, and having been melted down, they were cast into these shapes and came out into the forms which you see, baked in potters’ furnaces, produced by anvils and hammers, scraped with the silversmith’s, and filed down with ordinary files, cleft and hewn with saws, with augers,^46804680    So Salmasius, followed by Orelli, Hild., and Oehler, reading furfuraculis, and LB., reading perforaculis for the ms. furfure aculeis. with axes, dug and hollowed out by the turning of borers, and smoothed with planes. Is not this, then, an error? Is it not, to speak accurately, folly to believe that a god which you yourself made with care, to kneel down trembling in supplication to that which has been formed by you, and while you know, and are assured that it is the product^46814681    So the margin of Ursinus, Meursius (according to Orelli), Hild., and Oehler, reading part-u-m for the ms. -e-—“is a part of your labour,” etc. of the labour of your hands,^46824682    Lit., “of thy work and fingers.”—to cast yourself down upon your face, beg aid suppliantly, and, in adversity and time of distress, ask it to succour^46834683    So the ms., both Roman edd., Elm., and Orelli, reading numinis favore, for which LB. reads favorem—“the favour of the propitious deity to succour.” [Isaiah’s argument reproduced.] you with gracious and divine favour?