Ben Sira 42:1-10

1 Of these things be not thou ashamed, and accept no person to sin thereby:
2 of the law of the Most High and His covenant, and of judgment to justify the ungodly;
3 of reckoning with thy partners and travelers, or of the gift of the heritage of friends;
4 of exactness of balance and weights, or of getting much or little;
5 and of merchants' selling without profit, of much correction of children, and to make the side of an evil servant to bleed.
6 Safekeeping is good where an evil wife is, and shut up where many hands are.
7 Deliver all things by number and weight, and put all in writing that thou givest out or receivest in.
8 Be not ashamed to inform the unwise and foolish, and the extreme aged that contendeth with those that are young; thus shalt thou be truly learned, and approved by all men living.
9 The father waketh for the daughter when no man knoweth, and the care for her taketh away sleep: when she is young, lest she pass away the flower of her age; and being married, lest she should be hated;
10 in her virginity, lest she should be defiled and gotten with child in her father's house; and having a husband, lest she should misbehave herself; and when she is married, lest she should be barren.
Third Millennium Bible (TMB), New Authorized Version, Copyright 1998 by Deuel Enterprises, Inc., Gary, SD 57237. All rights reserved.