Wisdom 5:10–18

¹⁰like a ship passing through the billowy water, which, when it has gone by, there is no trace to be found, no pathway of its keel in the waves.↗

¹¹Or it is like when a bird flies through the air, no evidence of its passage is found, but the light wind, lashed with the stroke of its pinions, and torn apart with the violent rush of the moving wings, is passed through. Afterwards no sign of its coming remains.↗

¹²Or it is like when an arrow is shot at a mark, the air it divided closes up again immediately, so that men don’t know where it passed through.↗

¹³So we also, as soon as we were born, ceased to be; and we had no sign of virtue to show, but we were utterly consumed in our wickedness.”↗

¹⁴Because the hope of the ungodly man is like chaff carried by the wind, and as foam vanishing before a tempest; and is scattered like smoke by the wind, and passes by as the remembrance of a guest who stays just a day.↗

¹⁵But the righteous live forever. Their reward is in the Lord, and the care for them with the Most High.↗

¹⁶Therefore they will receive the crown of royal dignity and the diadem of beauty from the Lord’s hand, because he will cover them with his right hand, and he will shield them with his arm.↗

¹⁷He will take his zeal as complete armor, and will make the whole creation his weapons to punish his enemies:↗

¹⁸He will put on righteousness as a breastplate, and will wear impartial judgment as a helmet.↗