Add parallel Print Page Options

Chapter 2

    For, not thinking rightly, they said among themselves:[a]
“Brief and troubled is our lifetime;(A)
    there is no remedy for our dying,
    nor is anyone known to have come back from Hades.
For by mere chance were we born,
    and hereafter we shall be as though we had not been;
Because the breath in our nostrils is smoke,
    and reason a spark from the beating of our hearts,
And when this is quenched, our body will be ashes
    and our spirit will be poured abroad like empty air.(B)
Even our name will be forgotten in time,
    and no one will recall our deeds.
So our life will pass away like the traces of a cloud,
    and will be dispersed like a mist
Pursued by the sun’s rays
    and overpowered by its heat.
For our lifetime is the passing of a shadow;
    and our dying cannot be deferred
    because it is fixed with a seal; and no one returns.(C)

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 2:1–20 In this speech the wicked deny survival after death and indeed invite death by their evil deeds.