⁶"Come, therefore, let us enjoy the good things that exist,
and make use of the creation to the full as in youth.
⁷Let us take our fill of costly wine and perfumes,
and let no flower of spring pass by us.
⁸Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before they wither.
⁹Let none of us fail to share in our revelry,
everywhere let us leave signs of enjoyment,
because this is our portion, and this our lot.
¹⁰Let us oppress the righteous poor man;
let us not spare the widow
nor regard the gray hairs of the aged.
¹¹But let our might be our law of right,
for what is weak proves itself to be useless.

¹²"Let us lie in wait for the righteous man,
because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions;
he reproaches us for sins against the law,
and accuses us of sins against our training.
¹³He professes to have knowledge of God,
and calls himself a child of the Lord.
¹⁴He became to us a reproof of our thoughts;
the very sight of him is a burden to us,
¹⁵because his manner of life is unlike that of others,
and his ways are strange.
¹⁶We are considered by him as something base,
and he avoids our ways as unclean;
he calls the last end of the righteous happy,
and boasts that God is his father.
¹⁷Let us see if his words are true,
and let us test what will happen at the end of his life;
¹⁸for if the righteous man is God's son, he will help him,
and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries.
¹⁹Let us test him with insult and torture,
that we may find out how gentle he is,
and make trial of his forbearance.
²⁰Let us condemn him to a shameful death,
for, according to what he says, he will be protected."

²¹Thus they reasoned, but they were led astray,
for their wickedness blinded them,
²²and they did not know the secret purposes of God,
nor hope for the wages of holiness,
nor discern the prize for blameless souls;
²³for God created man for incorruption,
and made him in the image of his own eternity,
²⁴but through the devil's envy death entered the world,
and those who belong to his party experience it.