6 Clearly we were the ones who missed the way to truth. The light that would have shown us the right thing to do hasn’t shone for us. That sun didn’t rise upon us.
7 We got entangled in lawlessness and destruction. We wandered through desolate wildernesses. We didn’t know the Lord’s way.
8 What good did our pride do us? What good were our wealth and pretension?
9 These things have all passed away like a shadow. They’re gone like old news.
10 They’re gone like a ship passing through a storm-tossed sea: once it has passed, it leaves no trace of its passing; its keel leaves no lasting mark on the waves.
11 That’s all disappeared in the way a bird flies through the air and leaves no hint of its path: it beats its wings against the thin air, dives with a rush, uses its wings to circle round—yet afterward there’s no sign in the air that the bird was ever there.
12 It’s all vanished like an arrow that’s shot at its target: the air opens up as the arrow flies through it but immediately closes up behind the arrow, and no one can detect any trace of the arrow’s path.