For perverse thoughts separate people from God, and when his power is tested, it exposes the foolish;

For a holy and disciplined spirit will flee from deceit, and will leave foolish thoughts behind, and will be ashamed at the approach of unrighteousness.

In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died, and their departure was thought to be a disaster,

Their wives are foolish, and their children evil;

‘These are persons whom we once held in derision and made a byword of reproach—fools that we were! We thought that their lives were madness and that their end was without honour.

Punishment of the Wicked

In return for their foolish and wicked thoughts, which led them astray to worship irrational serpents and worthless animals, you sent upon them a multitude of irrational creatures to punish them,

For they went far astray on the paths of error, accepting as gods those animals that even their enemies despised; they were deceived like foolish infants.

The Foolishness of Nature Worship

For all people who were ignorant of God were foolish by nature; and they were unable from the good things that are seen to know the one who exists, nor did they recognize the artisan while paying heed to his works;

The Foolishness of Idolatry

But miserable, with their hopes set on dead things, are those who give the name ‘gods’ to the works of human hands, gold and silver fashioned with skill, and likenesses of animals, or a useless stone, the work of an ancient hand.

Therefore there will be a visitation also upon the heathen idols, because, though part of what God created, they became an abomination, snares for human souls and a trap for the feet of the foolish.

whose appearance arouses yearning in fools, so that they desire the lifeless form of a dead image.

The Foolishness of Worshipping Clay Idols

A potter kneads the soft earth and laboriously moulds each vessel for our service, fashioning out of the same clay both the vessels that serve clean uses and those for contrary uses, making all alike; but which shall be the use of each of them the worker in clay decides.

But most foolish, and more miserable than an infant, are all the enemies who oppressed your people.

For while they were still engaged in mourning, and were lamenting at the graves of their dead, they reached another foolish decision, and pursued as fugitives those whom they had begged and compelled to leave.