Sirach 2

¹ Son, when you apply yourself to the service of God, stand in justice and in fear, and prepare your soul for temptation.

² Humble your heart, and persevere. Incline your ear, and accept words of understanding. And you should not hurry away in the time of distress.

³ Endure steadfastly for God. Join yourself to God, and persevere, so that your life may increase in the very end.

⁴ Accept everything that will happened to you, and persevere in your sorrow, and have patience in your humiliation.

⁵ For gold and silver are tested in fire, yet truly, acceptable men are tested in the furnace of humiliation.

⁶ Believe God, and he will restore you to health. And straighten your way, and hope in him. Observe his fear, and grow old in it.

⁷ You who fear the Lord, wait for his mercy. And do not turn away from him, lest you fall.

⁸ You who fear the Lord, believe in him. And your reward will not be taken away.

⁹ You who fear the Lord, hope in him. And mercy will approach you, to your delight.

¹⁰ You who fear the Lord, love him. And your hearts will be illuminated.

¹¹ My sons, consider the nations of men, and know that not one of them hoped in the Lord and was confounded.

¹² For who has remained in his commandment and been abandoned? Or who has called upon him, and yet he despised him?

¹³ For God is upright and merciful, and he will forgive sins in the day of tribulation. And he is the Protector to all those who seek him in truth.

¹⁴ Woe to the duplicitous heart, and to the wicked lips, and to the hands that do evil, and to the sinner who walks the earth by two ways!

¹⁵ Woe to the dissolute in heart, who do not trust God! For, as a result, they will not be protected by him.

¹⁶ Woe to those who have lost endurance, and who have abandoned upright ways, and who have turned aside to depraved ways!

¹⁷ And what will they do when the Lord begins to examine them?

¹⁸ Those who fear the Lord will not be unbelieving toward his Word. And those who love him will keep to his way.

¹⁹ Those who fear the Lord will seek the things that are well-pleasing to him. And those who love him will be filled with his law.

²⁰ Those who fear the Lord will prepare their hearts, and they will sanctify their souls in his sight.

²¹ Those who fear the Lord keep his commandments, and they will have patience even until his examination,

²² saying: “If we do not do penance, then we will fall into the hands of the Lord, and not into the hands of men.”

²³ For according to his greatness, so also is his mercy with him.