⁷ For the potter, laboriously working the soft earth,
    molds for our service each single article:
He fashions out of the same clay
    both the vessels that serve for clean purposes
    and their opposites, all alike;
As to what shall be the use of each vessel of either class
    the worker in clay is the judge.^(A)

¹⁶ Your perversity is as though the potter
    were taken to be the clay:
As though what is made should say of its maker,
    “He did not make me!”
Or the vessel should say of the potter,
    “He does not understand.”^(A)

⁹ Woe to anyone who contends with their Maker;^(A)
    a potsherd among potsherds of the earth!^[a]
Shall the clay say to the potter, “What are you doing?”
    or, “What you are making has no handles”?