Ecclesiasticus / Sirach - Chapter 28

¹ Whoever exacts vengeance will experience the vengeance of the Lord, who keeps strict account of sin.

² Pardon your neighbour any wrongs done to you, and when you pray, your sins will be forgiven.

³ If anyone nurses anger against another, can one then demand compassion from the Lord?

⁴ Showing no pity for someone like oneself, can one then plead for one's own sins?

⁵ Mere creature of flesh, yet cherishing resentment!-who will forgive one for sinning?

⁶ Remember the last things, and stop hating, corruption and death, and be faithful to the commandments.

⁷ Remember the commandments, and do not bear your fellow ill-will, remember the covenant of the Most High, and ignore the offence.

⁸ Avoid quarrelling and you will sin less; for the hot-tempered provokes quarrels,

⁹ a sinner sows trouble between friends, introducing discord among the peaceful.

¹⁰ The way a fire burns depends on its fuel, a quarrel spreads in proportion to its violence; a man's rage depends on his strength, his fury grows fiercer in proportion to his wealth.

¹¹ A sudden quarrel kindles fire, a hasty dispute leads to bloodshed.

¹² Blow on a spark and up it flares, spit on it and out it goes; both are the effects of your mouth.

¹³ A curse on the scandal-monger and double-talker, such a person has ruined many who lived in concord.

¹⁴ That third tongue has shattered the peace of many and driven them from nation to nation; it has pulled down fortified cities, and overthrown the houses of the great.

¹⁵ The third tongue has had upright wives divorced, depriving them of reward for their hard work.

¹⁶ No one who listens to it will ever know peace of mind, will ever live in peace again.

¹⁷ A stroke of the whip raises a weal, but a stroke of the tongue breaks bones.

¹⁸ Many have fallen by the edge of the sword, but many more have fallen by the tongue.

¹⁹ Blessed is anyone who has been sheltered from it, and has not experienced its fury, who has not dragged its yoke about, or been bound in its chains;

²⁰ for its yoke is an iron yoke, its chains are bronze chains;

²¹ the death it inflicts is a miserable death, Sheol is preferable to it.

²² It cannot gain a hold over the devout, they are not burnt by its flames.

²³ Those who desert the Lord will fall into it, it will flare up inextinguishably among them, it will be let loose against them like a lion, it will tear them like a leopard.

²⁴ Be sure you put a thorn-hedge round your property, lock away your silver and gold;

²⁵ then make scales and weights for your words, and put a door with bolts across your mouth.

²⁶ Take care you take no false step through it, in case you fall a prey to him who lies in wait.

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