Wisdom 2:1-3

Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

2 For they reasoned unsoundly, saying to themselves,
“Short and sorrowful is our life,
and there is no remedy when a man comes to his end,
and no one has been known to return from Hades.
² Because we were born by mere chance,
and hereafter we shall be as though we had never been;
because the breath in our nostrils is smoke,
and reason is a spark kindled by the beating of our hearts.
³ When it is extinguished, the body will turn to ashes,
and the spirit will dissolve like empty air.