Ecclesiasticus / Sirach - The Old Testament

¹ Blessed is anyone who has not sinned in speech and who needs feel no remorse for sins.

² Blessed is anyone whose conscience brings no reproach and who has never given up hope.

³ Wealth is not the right thing for the niggardly, and what use are possessions to the covetous?

⁴ Whoever hoards by stinting himself is hoarding for others, and others will live sumptuously on his riches.

⁵ If someone is mean to himself, whom does he benefit? he does not even enjoy what is his own.

⁶ No one is meaner than the person who is mean to himself, this is how his wickedness repays him.

⁷ If he does any good, he does it unintentionally, and in the end he himself reveals his wickedness.

⁸ Wicked the person who has an envious eye, averting his face, and careless of others' lives.

⁹ The eye of the grasping is not content with what he has, greed shrivels up the soul.

¹⁰ The miser is grudging of bread, there is famine at his table.

¹¹ My child, treat yourself as well as you can afford, and bring worthy offerings to the Lord.

¹² Remember that death will not delay, and that you have never seen Sheol's contract.

¹³ Be kind to your friend before you die, treat him as generously as you can afford.

¹⁴ Do not refuse yourself the good things of today, do not let your share of what is lawfully desired pass you by.

¹⁵ Will you not have to leave your fortune to another, and the fruit of your labour to be divided by lot?

¹⁶ Give and receive, enjoy yourself -- there are no pleasures to be found in Sheol.

¹⁷ Like clothes, every body will wear out, the age -- old law is, 'Everyone must die.'

¹⁸ Like foliage growing on a bushy tree, some leaves falling, others growing, so are the generations of flesh and blood: one dies, another is born.

¹⁹ Every achievement rots away and perishes, and with it goes its author.

²⁰ Blessed is anyone who meditates on wisdom, and reasons with intelligence,

²¹ who studies her ways in his heart, and ponders her secrets.

²² He pursues her like a hunter, and lies in wait by her path;

²³ he peeps in at her windows, and listens at her doors;

²⁴ he lodges close to her house, and fixes his peg in her walls;

²⁵ he pitches his tent at her side, and lodges in an excellent lodging;

²⁶ he sets his children in her shade, and camps beneath her branches;

²⁷ he is sheltered by her from the heat, and in her glory he makes his home.