Sirach 23

¹O Lord, Father and Master of my life, don’t abandon me to their counsel. Don’t let me fall because of them. ²Who will set scourges over my thought, and a discipline of wisdom over my heart, that they spare me not for my errors, and not overlook their sins? ³Otherwise my errors might be multiplied, and my sins abound, I fall before my adversaries, and my enemy rejoice over me. ⁴O Lord, Father and God of my life, don’t give me a haughty eyes, ⁵and turn away evil desire from me. ⁶Let neither gluttony nor lust overtake me. Don’t give me over to a shameless mind. ⁷Listen, my children, to the discipline of the mouth. He who keeps it will not be caught. ⁸The sinner will be overpowered through his lips. By them, the insulter and the arrogant will stumble. ⁹Don’t accustom your mouth to an oath, and don’t be accustomed to naming the Holy One, ¹⁰for as a servant who is continually scourged will not lack bruises, so he also who swears and continually utters the Name will not be cleansed from sin. ¹¹A man of many oaths will be filled with iniquity. The scourge will not depart from his house. If he offends, his sin will be upon him. If he disregards it, he has sinned doubly. If he has sworn falsely, he will not be justified, for his house will be filled with calamities. ¹²There is a manner of speech that is clothed with death. Let it not be found in the heritage of Jacob, for all these things will be far from the godly, and they will not wallow in sins. ¹³Don’t accustom your mouth to gross rudeness, for it involves sinful speech. ¹⁴Remember your father and your mother, for you sit in the midst of great men, that you be not forgetful before them, and become a fool by your bad habit; so you may wish that you had not been born, and curse the day of your birth. ¹⁵A man who is accustomed to abusive language won’t be corrected all the days of his life. ¹⁶Two sorts of people multiply sins, and the third will bring wrath: a hot passion, like a burning fire, will not be quenched until it is consumed; a fornicator in the body of his flesh will never cease until he has burned out the fire. ¹⁷All bread is sweet to a fornicator. He will not cease until he dies. ¹⁸A man who goes astray from his own marriage bed says in his heart, “Who sees me? Darkness is around me, and the walls hide me. No one sees me. Of whom am I afraid? The Most High will not remember my sins.” ¹⁹The eyes of men are his terror. He doesn’t know that the eyes of the Lord are ten thousand times brighter than the sun, seeing all the ways of men, and looking into secret places. ²⁰All things were known to him before they were created, and also after they were completed. ²¹This man will be punished in the streets of the city. He will be seized where he least expects it. ²²So also is a wife who leaves her husband, and produces an heir by another man. ²³For first, she was disobedient in the law of the Most High. Second, she trespassed against her own husband. Third, she played the adulteress in fornication, and had children by another man. ²⁴She shall be brought out into the congregation. Her punishment will extend to her children. ²⁵Her children will not take root. Her branches will bear no fruit. ²⁶She will leave her memory for a curse. Her reproach won’t be blotted out. ²⁷And those who are left behind will know that there is nothing better than the fear of the Lord, and nothing sweeter than to heed the commandments of the Lord.