Athenian:  Then what life is agreeable to God, and becoming in His followers?  One only, expressed once for all in the old saying that ’like agrees with like, with measure measure,’ but things which have no measure agree neither with themselves nor with the things which have.  Now God ought to be to us the measure of all things, and not man (compare Crat.; Theaet.), as men commonly say (Protagoras):  the words are far more true of Him.  And he who would be dear to God must, as far as is possible, be like Him and such as He is.  Wherefore the temperate man is the friend of God, for he is like Him; and the intemperate man is unlike Him, and different from Him, and unjust.  And the same applies to other things; and this is the conclusion, which is also the noblest and truest of all sayings,—­that for the good man to offer sacrifice to the Gods, and hold converse with them by means of prayers and offerings and every kind of service, is the noblest and best of all things, and also the most conducive to a happy life, and very fit and meet.  But with the bad man, the opposite of this is true:  for the bad man has an impure soul, whereas the good is pure; and from one who is polluted, neither a good man nor God can without impropriety receive gifts.  Wherefore the unholy do only waste their much service upon the Gods, but when offered by any holy man, such service is most acceptable to them.  This is the mark at which we ought to aim.  But what weapons shall we use, and how shall we direct them?  In the first place, we affirm that next after the Olympian Gods and the Gods of the State, honour should be given to the Gods below; they should receive everything in even numbers, and of the second choice, and ill omen, while the odd numbers, and the first choice, and the things of lucky omen, are given to the Gods above, by him who would rightly hit the mark of piety.  Next to these Gods, a wise man will do service to the demons or spirits, and then to the heroes, and after them will follow the private and ancestral Gods, who are worshipped as the law prescribes in the places which are sacred to them.  Next comes the honour of living parents, to whom, as is meet, we have to pay the first and greatest and oldest of all debts, considering that all which a man has belongs to those who gave him birth and brought him up, and that he must do all that he can to minister to them, first, in his property, secondly, in his person, and thirdly, in his soul, in return for the endless care and travail which they bestowed upon him of old, in the days of his infancy, and which he is now to pay back to them when they are old and in the extremity of their need.  And all his life long he ought never to utter, or to have uttered, an unbecoming word to them; for of light and fleeting words the penalty is most severe; Nemesis, the messenger of justice, is appointed to watch over all such matters.  When they are angry and want to satisfy their feelings in word or deed, he should give way to them; for a father who thinks