Sirach 25:1-11

Things to be praised

1 My whole being takes pleasure in three things, and these are beautiful to the Lord and to human beings: harmony among brothers and sisters, friendship among neighbors, and a wife and husband who adapt to each other.
2 My whole being despises three types of persons, and I am angered by the way they live: an arrogant poor person, a rich liar, an old adulterer who never learns.
3 If you have gathered nothing in your youth, how then will you find anything in your old age?
4 How beautiful is sound judgment in gray-haired women and finding good advice in elderly men!
5 How beautiful is wisdom in the aged and thought and counsel in those who are respectable!
6 Experience is the crown of the aged and respecting the Lord is their claim to fame.
7 In my heart, I would consider nine conditions to be happy, and I'll name a tenth with my tongue— people who are made glad by their children, and who live to see the downfall of their enemies.
8 Happy are those who live with sensible wives, who don't slip with their tongue, and who haven't been a servant to one inferior to themselves.
9 Happy is the one who has gained good sense and who is passing this along to listening ears.
10 How great is one who finds Wisdom, but no one does better than the one who fears the Lord.
11 Fear of the Lord surpasses everything; those who possess it are incomparable.

Footnotes 2

  • [a]. Heb adds and who does not plow with an ox and an ass together. Happy are those who; LXX lacks this phrase and the prior line.
  • [b]. LXXb adds 25:12 Fear of the Lord is the start of loving him, and faith is the start of clinging to him.
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