1For they said among themselves, reasoning incorrectly, “Our life is short and sorrowful; there is no remedy at a person’s end, and no one is known to have returned from Hades.
2For we were born by chance, and afterward we will be as though we had never existed. For the breath in our nostrils is smoke, and reason is a spark in the beating of our heart;
3when it is extinguished, the body will turn to ashes, and the spirit will be dispersed like thin air.
4In time our name will be forgotten, and no one will remember our works. Our life will pass away like traces of a cloud and be scattered like a mist, chased by the sun’s rays and weighed down by its heat.
5For our life is the passing of a shadow, and there is no return from our end, because it is sealed, and no one comes back.”
6“Come, then, let us enjoy the good things that exist, and eagerly use creation as in youth.
7Let us fill ourselves with costly wine and perfumes, and let no flower of spring pass us by.
8Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before they wither.
9Let none of us be without a share in our revelry; everywhere let us leave symbols of our joy, because this is our portion and this is our lot.
10Let us oppress the righteous poor, not spare the widow, nor respect the long-accumulated gray hairs of the aged.
11Let our strength be the law of justice; for what is weak is proven to be useless.
12Let us lie in wait for the righteous man, for he is inconvenient to us and opposes our deeds; he reproaches us for sins against the law and accuses us of sins against our upbringing.
13He professes to have knowledge of God and calls himself a child of the Lord.
14He has become a rebuke to our thoughts; he is oppressive to us even to see,
15because his life is unlike others, and his ways are strange.
16We are considered counterfeit by him, and he avoids our ways as if they were unclean. He calls the end of the righteous blessed and boasts that God is his father.
17Let us see if his words are true, and let us test what will happen at his end.
18For if the righteous man is a son of God, God will help him and deliver him from the hand of his adversaries.
19Let us test him with insult and torture, so that we may know his gentleness and prove his forbearance.
20Let us condemn him to a shameful death, for according to his own words, he will be looked after.”
21So they reasoned, but they were led astray, for their own wickedness blinded them.
22They did not know the mysteries of God, nor hope for the wages of holiness, nor discern the prize for blameless souls.
23For God created man for incorruptibility and made him an image of his own eternity.
24But through the devil’s envy death entered the world, and those who belong to his party experience it.
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