Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) 36

¹ Have mercy on us, Master, Lord of all, and look on us, cast the fear of yourself over every nation.

² Raise your hand against the foreign nations and let them see your might.

³ As in their sight you have proved yourself holy before us, so now in our sight prove yourself great before them.

⁴ Let them acknowledge you, just as we have acknowledged that there is no God but you, Lord.

⁵ Send new portents, do fresh wonders, win glory for your hand and your right arm.

⁶ Rouse your fury, pour out your rage, destroy the opponent, annihilate the enemy.

⁷ Hasten the day, remember the oath, and let men tell of your mighty deeds.

⁸ Let fiery wrath swallow up the survivor, and destruction overtake those who use your people badly.

⁹ Crush the heads of hostile rulers who say, ‘There is nobody else but us!’

¹⁰ Gather together all the tribes of Jacob, restore them their inheritance as in the beginning.[*a]

¹¹ Have mercy, Lord, on the people who have invoked your name, on Israel whom you have treated as a first-born.

¹² Show compassion on your holy city, on Jerusalem the place of your rest.

¹³ Fill Zion with songs of your praise, and your sanctuary with your glory.

¹⁴ Bear witness to those you created in the beginning, and bring about what has been prophesied in your name.

¹⁵ Give those who wait for you their reward, and let your prophets be proved worthy of belief.

¹⁶ Grant, Lord, the prayer of your servants, in accordance with Aaron’s blessing on your people,

¹⁷ so that all the earth’s inhabitants may acknowledge that you are the Lord, the everlasting God.

¹⁸ The stomach takes in all kinds of food but some foods are better than others.

¹⁹ As the palate discerns the flavour of game, so a shrewd man detects lying words.

²⁰ A perverse heart causes sorrow, an experienced man knows how to pay him back.

²¹ A woman will accept any husband, but some daughters are better than others.

²² A woman’s beauty delights the beholder, a man likes nothing better.

²³ If her tongue is kind and gentle, her husband has no equal among the sons of men.

²⁴ The man who takes a wife has the makings of a fortune, a helper that suits him, and a pillar to lean on.

²⁵ If a property has no fence, it will be plundered. When a man has no wife, he is aimless and querulous.

²⁶ Will anyone trust a man carrying weapons who flits from town to town?

²⁷ So it is with the man who has no nest, and lodges wherever night overtakes him.