2:1 For 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.
2:2 For 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:
2:3 Which being extinguished, our body shall be turned into ashes, and our spirit shall vanish as the soft air,
2:4 And 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.
2:5 For 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.
2:6 Come on therefore, let us enjoy the good things that are present: and let us speedily use the creatures like as in youth.
2:7 Let us fill ourselves with costly wine and ointments: and let no flower of the spring pass by us:
2:8 Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds, before they be withered:
2:9 Let 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.
2:10 Let us oppress the poor righteous man, let us not spare the widow, nor reverence the ancient gray hairs of the aged.
2:11 Let our strength be the law of justice: for that which is feeble is found to be nothing worth.
2:12 Therefore 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.
2:13 He professeth to have the knowledge of God: and he calleth himself the child of the Lord.
2:14 He was made to reprove our thoughts.
2:15 He is grievous unto us even to behold: for his life is not like other men's, his ways are of another fashion.
2:16 We 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.
2:17 Let us see if his words be true: and let us prove what shall happen in the end of him.
2:18 For if the just man be the son of God, he will help him, and deliver him from the hand of his enemies.
2:19 Let us examine him with despitefulness and torture, that we may know his meekness, and prove his patience.
2:20 Let us condemn him with a shameful death: for by his own saying he shall be respected.
2:21 Such things they did imagine, and were deceived: for their own wickedness hath blinded them.
2:22 As for the mysteries of God, they kn ew them not: neither hoped they for the wages of righteousness, nor discerned a reward for blameless souls.
2:23 For God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of his own eternity.
2:24 Nevertheless through envy of the devil came death into the world: and they that do hold of his side do find it.