For certainly no one knows his time: like fish caught in a cruel net or like birds caught in a trap, so people are trapped in an evil time as it suddenly falls on them.
For he says: At an acceptable time I listened to you, and in the day of salvation I helped you. , See, now is the acceptable time; now is the day of salvation!
But these people, like irrational animals #– #creatures of instinct born to be caught and destroyed #– #slander what they do not understand, and in their destruction they too will be destroyed.
Conduct yourselves honourably among the Gentiles, so that when they slander you as evildoers, they will observe your good works and will glorify God on the day he visits.
For the fate of the children of Adam and the fate of animals is the same. As one dies, so dies the other; they all have the same breath. People have no advantage over animals since everything is futile.
Whoever flees at the sound of panic will fall into a pit, and whoever escapes from the pit will be caught in a trap. For the floodgates on high are opened, and the foundations of the earth are shaken.
No one has authority over the wind to restrain it, and there is no authority over the day of death; no one is discharged during battle, and wickedness will not allow those who practise it to escape.
As they are going, I will spread my net over them; I will bring them down like birds of the sky. I will discipline them in accordance with the news that reaches their assembly.