11 So guard against useless murmuring. Keep your tongue from speaking ill. Everything you say has some consequence, even if you think that you are speaking in private. A lying mouth destroys the soul.
12 Don’t seek death through the error of your ways. Don’t invite destruction on yourself by what you do.
13 God didn’t make death. God takes no delight in the ruin of anything that lives.
14 God created everything so that it might exist. The creative forces at work in the cosmos are life-giving. There is no destructive poison in them. The underworld doesn’t rule on earth.
15 Doing what is right means living forever.
16 In spite of this, the ungodly called out to death by what they did and said. Thinking that death was their friend, they lost their resolve and made a treaty with death. Let them have each other: death and the ungodly belong together!