Sirach 23

¹ Lord, father and master of my life, do not abandon me to their whims, do not let me fal because ofthem.

² Who wil lay whips to my thoughts, and the discipline of wisdom to my heart, to be merciless to myerrors and not let my sins go unchecked,

³ for fear my errors should multiply and my sins then abound and I fal before my adversaries, and myenemy gloat over me?

⁴ Lord, father and God of my life, do not let my eyes be proud,

⁵ turn envy away from me,

⁶ do not let lechery and lust grip me, do not leave me a prey to shameless desire.

⁷ Children, listen to what I teach, no one who keeps it wil be caught out.

⁸ The sinner is ensnared by his own lips, both the abusive and the proud are tripped by them.

⁹ Do not get into the habit of swearing, do not make a habit of naming the Holy One;

¹⁰ for just as a slave who is constantly overseen wil never be without bruises, so someone who is alwaysswearing and uttering the Name wil not be exempt from sin.

¹¹ A man for ever swearing is full of iniquity, and the scourge wil not depart from his house. If he offends,his sin wil be on him, if he did it unheedingly, he has doubly sinned; if he swears a false oath, he wil not betreated as innocent, for his house wil be fil ed with calamities.

¹² One way of talking is like death, let it not be found in the heritage of Jacob since devout people havenothing to do with that: they wil not wal ow in sin.

¹³ Do not get into the habit of using coarse and foul language since this involves sinful words.

¹⁴ Remember your father and mother when you are sitting with the great, for fear you forget yourself intheir presence and behave like a fool, and then wish you had not been born and curse the day of your birth.

¹⁵ No one in the habit of using shameful language wil break himself of it as long as he lives.

¹⁶ There are two types of people who commit sin after sin and a third who attracts retribution-

¹⁷ desire, blazing like a furnace, wil not die down until it has been sated- the man who lusts aftermembers of his own family is not going to stop until he is quite burnt out; every food is sweet to the promiscuous,and he wil not desist until he dies;

¹⁸ and the man who sins against the marriage bed and says to himself, 'Who can see me? There isdarkness all round me, the wal s hide me, no one can see me, why should I worry? The Most High wil notremember my sins.'

¹⁹ What he fears are human eyes, he does not realise that the eyes of the Lord are ten thousand timesbrighter than the sun, observing every aspect of human behaviour, seeing into the most secret corners.

²⁰ Al things were known to him before they were created, and are stil , now that they are finished.

²¹ This man will be punished in view of the whole town, and wil be seized when he least expects it.

²² Similarly the woman unfaithful to her husband, who provides him with an heir by another man:

²³ first, she has disobeyed the Law of the Most High; secondly, she has been false to her husband; andthirdly, she has gone whoring in adultery

²⁴ and conceived children by another man. She will be led before the assembly, an enquiry will be heldabout her children.

²⁵ Her children wil strike no root, her branches wil bear no fruit.

²⁶ She wil leave an accursed memory behind her, her shame wil never be wiped out.

²⁷ And those who survive her wil recognise that nothing is better than fearing the Lord, and nothingsweeter than adherence to the Lord's commandments.