Wisdom of Solomon, Chapter 2

¹For the ungodly said, reasoning with themselves, but not aright, Our life is short and tedious, and in the death of a man there is no remedy: neither was there any man known to have returned from the grave. ²For we are born at all adventure: and we shall be hereafter as though we had never been: for the breath in our nostrils is as smoke, and a little spark in the moving of our heart: ³Which being extinguished, our body shall be turned into ashes, and our spirit shall vanish as the soft air, ⁴And our name shall be forgotten in time, and no man shall have our works in remembrance, and our life shall pass away as the trace of a cloud, and shall be dispersed as a mist, that is driven away with the beams of the sun, and overcome with the heat thereof. ⁵For our time is a very shadow that passeth away; and after our end there is no returning: for it is fast sealed, so that no man cometh again. ⁶Come on therefore, let us enjoy the good things that are present: and let us speedily use the creatures like as in youth. ⁷Let us fill ourselves with costly wine and ointments: and let no flower of the spring pass by us: ⁸Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds, before they be withered:

⁹Let none of us go without his part of our voluptuousness: let us leave tokens of our joyfulness in every place: for this is our portion, and our lot is this. ¹⁰Let us oppress the poor righteous man, let us not spare the widow, nor reverence the ancient gray hairs of the aged. ¹¹Let our strength be the law of justice: for that which is feeble is found to be nothing worth. ¹²Therefore let us lie in wait for the righteous; because he is not for our turn, and he is clean contrary to our doings: he upbraideth us with our offending the law, and objecteth to our infamy the transgressings of our education. ¹³He professeth to have the knowledge of God: and he calleth himself the child of the Lord. ¹⁴He was made to reprove our thoughts. ¹⁵He is grievous unto us even to behold: for his life is not like other men’s, his ways are of another fashion. ¹⁶We are esteemed of him as counterfeits: he abstaineth from our ways as from filthiness: he pronounceth the end of the just to be blessed, and maketh his boast that God is his father.

¹⁷Let us see if his words be true: and let us prove what shall happen in the end of him. ¹⁸For if the just man be the son of God, he will help him, and deliver him from the hand of his enemies. ¹⁹Let us examine him with despitefulness and torture, that we may know his meekness, and prove his patience. ²⁰Let us condemn him with a shameful death: for by his own saying he shall be respected. ²¹Such things they did imagine, and were deceived: for their own wickedness hath blinded them. ²²As for the mysteries of God, they knew them not: neither hoped they for the wages of righteousness, nor discerned a reward for blameless souls. ²³For God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of his own eternity. ²⁴Nevertheless through envy of the devil came death into the world: and they that do hold of his side do find it.