Ben Sira 27:14-24

14 When such people curse, it is enough to make your hair stand on end, and when they start arguing among themselves, all you can do is to stop up your ears.
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. 1
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.
20 Don't bother going after him. It's too late. He is gone, like a deer escaped from a trap.
21 Wounds can be bandaged and insults can be forgiven, but if you betray a confidence, it is hopeless.
22 When someone starts winking at you, he has something bad in mind, and nothing can stop him from going through with it.
23 When he's with you, his talk is so nice! He compliments you on every word you say. But behind your back it's a different story; he will take what you have said and turn it against you.
24 There is nothing in the world that I hate as much as a person like that - and the Lord hates him too.

Cross References 1

  • 1. 27.16-21Proverbs 20.19; 25.9.
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.