Scripture Text (NRSV)
1:16 But the ungodly by their words and deeds summoned death;
considering him a friend, they pined away and made a covenant with
him, because they are fit to belong to his company.
2:1 For they reasoned unsoundly, saying to themselves, "Short and
sorrowful is our life, and there is no remedy when a life comes to its
end, and no one has been known to return from Hades.
2:12 "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.
2:13 He professes to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a child
of the Lord.
2:14 He became to us a reproof of our thoughts;
2:15 the very sight of him is a burden to us, because his manner of
life is unlike that of others, and his ways are strange.
2:16 We 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.
2:17 Let us see if his words are true, and let us test what will
happen at the end of his life;
2:18 for if the righteous man is God's child, he will help him, and
will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries.
2:19 Let us test him with insult and torture, so that we may find out
how gentle he is, and make trial of his forbearance.
2:20 Let us condemn him to a shameful death, for, according to what he
says, he will be protected."
2:21 Thus they reasoned, but they were led astray, for their
wickedness blinded them,
2:22 and they did not know the secret purposes of God, nor hoped for
the wages of holiness, nor discerned the prize for blameless souls.
