Sirach

Chapter-2

Sirach 2:1 Son, when you apply yourself to the service of God, stand in justice and in fear, and prepare your soul for temptation.

 

Sirach 2:2 Humble your heart, and persevere. Incline your ear, and accept words of understanding. And you should not hurry away in the time of distress.

 

Sirach 2:3 Endure steadfastly for God. Join yourself to God, and persevere, so that your life may increase in the very end.

 

Sirach 2:4 Accept everything that will happened to you, and persevere in your sorrow, and have patience in your humiliation.

 

Sirach 2:5 For gold and silver are tested in fire, yet truly, acceptable men are tested in the furnace of humiliation.

 

Sirach 2:6 Believe God, and he will restore you to health. And straighten your way, and hope in him. Observe his fear, and grow old in it.

 

Sirach 2:7 You who fear the Lord, wait for his mercy. And do not turn away from him, lest you fall.

 

Sirach 2:8 You who fear the Lord, believe in him. And your reward will not be taken away.

 

Sirach 2:9 You who fear the Lord, hope in him. And mercy will approach you, to your delight.

 

Sirach 2:10 You who fear the Lord, love him. And your hearts will be illuminated.

 

Sirach 2:11 My sons, consider the nations of men, and know that not one of them hoped in the Lord and was confounded.

 

Sirach 2:12 For who has remained in his commandment and been abandoned? Or who has called upon him, and yet he despised him?

 

Sirach 2:13 For God is upright and merciful, and he will forgive sins in the day of tribulation. And he is the Protector to all those who seek him in truth.

 

Sirach 2:14 Woe to the duplicitous heart, and to the wicked lips, and to the hands that do evil, and to the sinner who walks the earth by two ways!

 

Sirach 2:15 Woe to the dissolute in heart, who do not trust God! For, as a result, they will not be protected by him.

 

Sirach 2:16 Woe to those who have lost endurance, and who have abandoned upright ways, and who have turned aside to depraved ways!

 

Sirach 2:17 And what will they do when the Lord begins to examine them?

 

Sirach 2:18 Those who fear the Lord will not be unbelieving toward his Word. And those who love him will keep to his way.

 

Sirach 2:19 Those who fear the Lord will seek the things that are well-pleasing to him. And those who love him will be filled with his law.

 

Sirach 2:20 Those who fear the Lord will prepare their hearts, and they will sanctify their souls in his sight.

 

Sirach 2:21 Those who fear the Lord keep his commandments, and they will have patience even until his examination,

 

Sirach 2:22 saying: “If we do not do penance, then we will fall into the hands of the Lord, and not into the hands of men.”

 

Sirach 2:23 For according to his greatness, so also is his mercy with him.