Wisdom 2:1-3

New Catholic Bible

¹ These people said to themselves with deluded reasoning:
“Brief and burdensome is our life,
    and there is no remedy when death summons,
    nor has anyone been known to have returned^[a] from the netherworld.
² For we were born as the result of happenstance,
    and afterward we shall be as though we had never existed.
The breath in our nostrils is merely a puff of smoke,
    and our reason is a spark enkindled by the beating of our hearts.
³ Once it is extinguished, our body will turn to ashes,
    and our spirit will melt away like empty air.