Wisdom 2

KING JAMES BIBLE	NEW JERUSALEM
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.	1 And this is the false argument they use, 'Our life is short and dreary, there is no remedy when our endcomes, no one is known to have come back from Hades.
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 We came into being by chance and afterwards shal be as though we had never been. The breath in ournostrils is a puff of smoke, reason a spark from the beating of our hearts;
3 Which being extinguished, our body shall be turned into ashes, and our spirit shall vanish as the soft air,	3 extinguish this and the body turns to ashes, and the spirit melts away like the yielding air.
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.	4 In time, our name wil be forgotten, nobody wil remember what we have done; our life will pass awaylike wisps of cloud, dissolving like the mist that the sun's rays drive away and that its heat dispels.
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.	5 For our days are the passing of a shadow, our end is without return, the seal is affixed and nobodycomes back.
6 Come on therefore, let us enjoy the good things that are present: and let us speedily use the creatures like as in youth.	6 'Come then, let us enjoy the good things of today, let us use created things with the zest of youth:
7 Let us fill ourselves with costly wine and ointments: and let no flower of the spring pass by us:	7 take our fil of the dearest wines and perfumes, on no account forgo the flowers of spring
8 Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds, before they be withered:	8 but crown ourselves with rosebuds before they wither,
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.	9 no meadow excluded from our orgy; let us leave the signs of our revelry everywhere, since this is ourportion, this our lot!
10 Let us oppress the poor righteous man, let us not spare the widow, nor reverence the ancient gray hairs of the aged.	10 'As for the upright man who is poor, let us oppress him; let us not spare the widow, nor respect oldage, white-haired with many years.
11 Let our strength be the law of justice: for that which is feeble is found to be nothing worth.	11 Let our might be the yardstick of right, since weakness argues its own futility.
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.	12 Let us lay traps for the upright man, since he annoys us and opposes our way of life, reproaches us forour sins against the Law, and accuses us of sins against our upbringing.
13 He professeth to have the knowledge of God: and he calleth himself the child of the Lord.	13 He claims to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a child of the Lord.
14 He was made to reprove our thoughts.	14 We see him as a reproof to our way of thinking, the very sight of him weighs our spirits down;
15 He is grievous unto us even to behold: for his life is not like other men's, his ways are of another fashion.	15 for his kind of life is not like other people's, and his ways are quite different.
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.	16 In his opinion we are counterfeit; he avoids our ways as he would filth; he proclaims the final end of theupright as blessed and boasts of having God for his father.
17 Let us see if his words be true: and let us prove what shall happen in the end of him.	17 Let us see if what he says is true, and test him to see what sort of end he wil have.
18 For if the just man be the son of God, he will help him, and deliver him from the hand of his enemies.	18 For if the upright man is God's son, God wil help him and rescue him from the clutches of hisenemies.
19 Let us examine him with despitefulness and torture, that we may know his meekness, and prove his patience.	19 Let us test him with cruelty and with torture, and thus explore this gentleness of his and put hispatience to the test.
20 Let us condemn him with a shameful death: for by his own saying he shall be respected.	20 Let us condemn him to a shameful death since God wil rescue him -- or so he claims.'
21 Such things they did imagine, and were deceived: for their own wickedness hath blinded them.	21 This is the way they reason, but they are misled, since their malice makes them blind.
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.	22 They do not know the hidden things of God, they do not hope for the reward of holiness, they do notbelieve in a reward for blameless souls.
23 For God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of his own eternity.	23 For God created human beings to be immortal, he made them as an image of his own nature;
24 Nevertheless through envy of the devil came death into the world: and they that do hold of his side do find it.	24 Death came into the world only through the Devil's envy, as those who belong to him find to their cost.