Ben Sira 27:17

17 Respect your friends, and keep faith with them. If you do betray a friend's confidence, you may as well forget you have a friend.

Ben Sira 27:17 In-Context

15 It is painful to listen to them insult each other, and such blustering can lead to violence.

16 If you repeat secrets that have been told to you, you are destroying the confidence others have in you, and you will never have a close friend.

17 Respect your friends, and keep faith with them. If you do betray a friend's confidence, you may as well forget you have a friend.

18 You have killed that friendship just as surely as if you had taken a weapon and killed an enemy.

19 Your friend is gone. You can no more get him back than you can get a bird to come back to your hand once you let it go.