Sirach

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

¹³For 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. ↗

¹⁴Woe 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! ↗

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

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

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

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

¹⁹Those 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. ↗

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

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

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

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