Wisdom 2 • The ungodly plot against the righteous — Greek text and reception
Each card preserves the Greek reading and its textual and reception notes. This source provides a Greek study edition; Hebrew counterparts and Hebrew–Greek classifications are not supplied.
Chapter 2 • The ungodly plot against the righteous
Their reasoning about life and death
Verse 2:1
Greek–English Saints Priority
For they said among themselves, reasoning wrongly:
“Our life is short and sorrowful,
and there is no healing when a human being dies,
and no one has been known to return from Hades.
Textual & Reception Notes
The narrator explicitly identifies the following speech as mistaken reasoning; its claims are not presented as the narrator’s own conclusions.
Verse 2:2
Greek–English Saints Priority
For we came into being by chance,
and afterward we will be as though we had not existed;
for the breath in our nostrils is smoke,
and reason is a spark in the movement of our heart;
Textual & Reception Notes
Λόγος can denote word, speech, or reason. ‘Reason’ is adopted in this account of bodily life and thought.
Verse 2:3
Greek–English Saints Priority
when it is extinguished, the body will become ashes,
and the spirit will disperse like insubstantial air.
Textual & Reception Notes
The relative refers to the preceding spark. ‘Insubstantial’ renders χαῦνος, which can convey loose, empty, or unsubstantial.
Verse 2:4
Greek–English Saints Priority
And our name will be forgotten in time,
and no one will remember our works;
our life will pass like the traces of a cloud,
and will disperse like mist,
driven away by the sun’s rays
and weighed down by its heat.
Textual & Reception Notes
The final passive literally carries the sense ‘made heavy/burdened.’ The unusual physical image is retained, rather than harmonized to evaporation language.
Verse 2:5
Greek–English Saints Priority
For our allotted time is the passing of a shadow,
and there is no turning back from our end,
because it has been sealed, and no one returns.
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 2:6
Greek–English Saints Priority
Come, then, and let us enjoy the good things that exist,
and eagerly make use of creation as in youth.
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 2:7
Greek–English Saints Priority
Let us fill ourselves with costly wine and perfumes,
and let no spring blossom pass us by.
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 2:8
Greek–English Saints Priority
Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before they wither.
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 2:9
Greek–English Saints Priority
Let none of us be without a share in our revelry;
let us leave tokens of our enjoyment everywhere,
for this is our portion, and this our lot.
Textual & Reception Notes
The declared main text reads ‘none of us,’ μηδεὶς ἡμῶν. No alternate ‘meadow’ reading is adopted or claimed to have been collated.
The plot against the righteous person
Verse 2:10
Greek–English Saints Priority
Let us oppress the poor righteous person;
let us not spare a widow,
nor show regard for an old man’s many years of gray hair.
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 2:11
Greek–English Saints Priority
Let our strength be the law of righteousness,
for what is weak is shown to be useless.
Textual & Reception Notes
The speakers make power the norm of right; the narrative framing in 2:1 and 2:21 remains essential.
Verse 2:12
Greek–English Saints Priority
Let us lie in wait for the righteous person, because he is troublesome to us
and opposes our works;
he reproaches us for sins against law
and charges us with sins against our upbringing.
Textual & Reception Notes
Παιδεία concerns education, training, or upbringing. Both accusations are retained; the Greek has no named lawgiver. Saints: Augustine, The City of God 17.20, quotes Wisdom 2:12–21 and interprets the persecution of the righteous person as prophecy of Christ’s passion. This is his explicit Christian reading; the translation retains the passage’s unnamed righteous person. [AUG-CG17]
Verse 2:13
Greek–English Saints Priority
He professes to have knowledge of God
and calls himself a child of the Lord.
Textual & Reception Notes
Παῖς can mean child or servant. ‘Child’ is adopted because 2:16 speaks of God as father and 2:18 explicitly uses ‘son.’ The lexical distinction from υἱός in 2:18 remains recorded.
Verse 2:14
Greek–English Saints Priority
He has become a reproach to our thoughts;
even the sight of him weighs upon us,
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 2:15
Greek–English Saints Priority
because his life is unlike that of others,
and his paths are different.
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 2:16
Greek–English Saints Priority
He reckons us counterfeit,
and keeps away from our ways as from impurities;
he calls the final lot of the righteous blessed,
and boasts that God is his father.
Textual & Reception Notes
Κίβδηλος carries the image of false or debased coin. The final possessive ‘his’ is supplied by English from the sense of boasting of God as father.
Verse 2:17
Greek–English Saints Priority
Let us see whether his words are true,
and test what will happen at his departure.
Textual & Reception Notes
Ἔκβασις can denote outcome or departure; the following death sentence gives the expression its immediate setting.
Verse 2:18
Greek–English Saints Priority
For if the righteous person is a son of God, He will help him
and rescue him from the hand of his opponents.
Textual & Reception Notes
Υἱός explicitly means son. ‘He’ marks God as the understood subject of help and rescue; the righteous person’s pronouns remain lowercase.
Verse 2:19
Greek–English Saints Priority
Let us examine him with insult and torture,
so that we may know his gentleness
and test his endurance of wrong.
Textual & Reception Notes
Ἀνεξικακία is patient endurance of evil or injury; it is not merely physical strength.
Verse 2:20
Greek–English Saints Priority
Let us condemn him to a shameful death,
for, according to his words, he will be visited with care.”
Textual & Reception Notes
Ἐπισκοπή is visitation or oversight; in the speakers’ challenge it concerns the care or intervention he expects. The irony is not replaced with an added assertion of rescue.
Their blindness and God’s purpose
Verse 2:21
Greek–English Saints Priority
They reasoned these things and went astray,
for their wickedness blinded them;
Textual & Reception Notes
The narrator resumes and rejects the preceding reasoning.
Verse 2:22
Greek–English Saints Priority
they did not know the mysteries of God,
nor hope for a reward of holiness,
nor recognize a prize for blameless souls.
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 2:23
Greek–English Saints Priority
For God created the human being for incorruption
and made him an image of His own eternity;
Textual & Reception Notes
The declared Greek reads ἀϊδιότης, ‘eternity’ or everlastingness. ‘Incorruption’ retains ἀφθαρσία and is not silently substituted for the distinct term immortality.
Verse 2:24
Greek–English Saints Priority
but through the devil’s envy death entered the world,
and those who belong to his portion experience it.
Textual & Reception Notes
Διάβολος is rendered devil; the word can denote a slanderer or accuser. The closing ‘it’ refers to death; the preceding personification and ‘his portion’ leave a pronoun relation that deserves explicit review rather than silent expansion.