Ben Sira 16:13-23

13 No sinner can escape with what he has stolen. The Lord will reward the patience of devout people.

14 Every righteous person will be rewarded; everyone will get what he deserves.

17 Never say, "I will hide from the Lord. Nobody up there is going to give me a thought. How can I be noticed among so many people? The creation is so enormous, what am I worth?

18 When the Lord comes, everything will tremble: the earth and the great waters beneath it, the sky and the heavens above it.

19 The mountains will shake, and the foundations of the earth will shudder when he looks at them.

20 The Lord isn't going to give me a thought. Nobody cares what I do.

21 If I sin and am secretly disloyal, nobody will know it.

22 If I do what is right, nobody will tell the Lord about it. Who wants to wait for him, anyway? He is too slow in doing what he has said he would."

23 Only someone with very little sense, and foolishly misguided, would think things like that.

Footnotes

• [a]. [Hebrew] Every . . . rewarded; [Greek] He makes room for every act of mercy.
• [b]. [Some manuscripts add verses 15-16:] The Lord made the king of Egypt so stubborn that he would not acknowledge the Lord, in order that the world might know the Lord's works. +V16+WHe shows his mercy to all creation; he has divided his light from darkness with a plumb line.
• [c]. [Hebrew] +V20-21+WThe Lord . . . know it; [Greek] +V20+WIt is altogether too big for the human mind to handle. No one can understand his ways. +V21+WMost of his works are just as invisible as the storm wind.