7 We were entangled in the thorns of mischief and of ruin;we journeyed through trackless deserts,but the way of the Lord we never knew.
8 What did our pride avail us?What have wealth and its boastfulness afforded us?
9 All of them passed like a shadowand like a fleeting rumor;
10 Like a ship traversing the heaving water:when it has passed, no trace can be found,no path of its keel in the waves.
11 Or like a bird flying through the air;no evidence of its course is to be found—But the fluid air, lashed by the beating of pinions,and cleft by the rushing forceOf speeding wings, is traversed;and afterward no mark of passage can be found in it.
12 Or as, when an arrow has been shot at a mark,the parted air straightway flows together againso that none discerns the way it went—
13 Even so, once born, we abruptly came to noughtand held no sign of virtue to display,but were consumed in our wickedness.”