Wisdom Chapter 2
The vain reasonings of the wicked: their persecuting the just, especially the Son of God.
2:1. For they have said, reasoning with themselves, but not right: The time of our life is short and tedious, and in the end of a man there is no remedy, and no man hath been known to have returned from hell:
2:2. For we are born of nothing, and after this we shall be as if we had not been: for the breath in our nostrils is smoke: and speech a spark to move our heart,
2:3. Which being put out, our body shall be ashes, and our spirit shall be poured abroad as soft air, and our life shall pass away as the trace of a cloud, and shall be dispersed as a mist, which is driven away by the beams of the sun, and overpowered with the heat thereof:
2:4. And our name in time shall be forgotten, and no man shall have any remembrance of our works.
2:5. For our time is as the passing of a shadow, and there is no going back of our end: for it is fast sealed, and no man returneth:
2:6. Come, therefore, and let us enjoy the good things that are present, and let us speedily use the creatures as in youth.
2:7. Let us fill ourselves with costly wine, and ointments: and let not the flower of the time pass by us.
2:8. Let us crown ourselves with roses, before they be withered: let no meadow escape our riot.