Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) 23

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

² Who will lay whips to my thoughts, and the discipline of wisdom to my heart, to be unmerciful to my errors, and let none of my sins go unchecked

³ in case my errors multiply, and my sins increase in number, and I fall before my adversaries, and my enemy gloats over me?

⁴ Lord, father and God of my life, do not give me proud eyes,

⁵ turn lust away from me,

⁶ do not let lechery and lust grip me, do not give me over to shameless desire.

⁷ Listen, children, to the instruction I have to give; whoever keeps it will not be caught out.

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

⁹ Do not accustom your mouth to swearing, nor get into the habit of naming the Holy One;

¹⁰ for just as a slave who is constantly overseen will never be without bruises, so too the man who is continually swearing oaths and uttering the name will not be exempt from sin.

¹¹ A man forever swearing is full of iniquity, and the scourge will not depart from his house. If he offends, his sin will be on him, if he swears lightly, he sins twice over; if he swears a false oath, he will not be treated as innocent, for his house will be filled with calamities.

¹² There is a manner of talking that is fraught with death; let it not be found in the inheritance of Jacob, for devout men will keep all that far from them, they will not wallow in sin.

¹³ Do not habituate your mouth to coarseness and foul language, for this means sinful talk.

¹⁴ Remember your father and mother when you are sitting among princes, in case you forget yourself in their presence, and behave like a fool, and then wish you had not been born, and curse the day of your birth.

¹⁵ A man in the habit of using improper words will never break himself of it however long he lives.

¹⁶ Two kinds of men multiply sins, and a third draws down wrath:

¹⁷ there is a desire that, blazing like a furnace, cannot be quenched until it is slaked; there is the man who lusts for his own flesh: he will not give up until the fire consumes him; to a fornicator all food is sweet, and he will not weary of it until he dies:

¹⁸ The man who sins against his own marriage bed, and says to himself, ‘Who can see me? There is darkness all round me, the walls hide me, nobody sees me; why should I worry? The Most High will not call my sins to mind’: what he fears is the eyes of men,

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

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

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

²² Similarly the woman who deserts her husband, and 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; and thirdly, she has gone whoring in adultery and conceived children by another man.

²⁴ She will be led before the assembly, an enquiry will be held about her children.

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

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

²⁷ And those who survive her will recognise that nothing is better than fearing the Lord, and nothing sweeter than adherence to the Lord’s commandments.