Sirach 14:18-20

New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised

¹⁸ Like abundant leaves on a spreading tree
    that sheds some and puts forth others,
so are the generations of flesh and blood:
    one dies and another is born.
¹⁹ Every work decays and ceases to exist,
    and the one who made it will pass away with it.

²⁰ Happy is the person who meditates on^[a] wisdom
    and reasons intelligently,