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Jesus Ben Sira

Sirach

Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus

About this book

Faithfulness in Trials

Chapter 2

1 My son, if you come to serve the Lord, prepare your soul for testing.⁠ 2 Set your heart right and endure steadily. Do not be hasty in a time of disaster. 3 Cling to him, and do not leave him, so that you may prosper at the end. 4 Accept whatever is brought on you, and be patient when you suffer humiliation.⁠ 5 For gold is tested in the fire, and people who are acceptable to God in the furnace of humiliation.⁠ 6 Put your trust in him, and he will help you. Make your ways straight, and set your hope on him.

Trust in God’s Mercy

7 All you who fear the Lord, wait for his mercy. Do not turn aside, so that you do not fall.⁠ 8 All you who fear the Lord, put your trust in him, and your reward will not fail. 9 All you who fear the Lord, hope for good things, and for eternal gladness and mercy. 10 Look at the generations of the past and see. Who ever put their trust in the Lord, and was put to shame? Or who continued to fear him and was abandoned? Or who called on him and was neglected? 11 For the Lord is full of compassion and mercy. He forgives sins and saves in time of distress.⁠

Warnings against Faithlessness

12 How terrible for fearful hearts, to powerless hands, and to the sinner who follows two paths! 13 How terrible for the fainthearted! For they do not believe, so they will not be protected. 14 How terrible for you who have lost your patience! And what will you all do when the Lord comes to you?

Those Who Fear the Lord

15 Those who fear the Lord will not disobey his words. Those who love him will keep his ways. 16 Those who fear the Lord will seek his good pleasure. Those who love him will be filled with the law. 17 Those who fear the Lord will prepare their hearts, and will humble their souls in his sight. 18 We will fall into the hands of the Lord, and not into the hands of people, for his mercy is as great as his majesty.

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Texts in conversation

Compare Jesus Ben Sira, Sirach 2:11 and Against Novatian 18

Deuterocanon · Early Christian

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Summary

The early Christian text Against Novatian, written during a third-century debate over whether those who denied their faith under persecution could be forgiven, uses Sirach as an authoritative source to affirm that restoration was possible.

Passages

Jesus Ben Sira, Sirach 2:11

Deuterocanon · Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus
9 All you who fear the Lord, hope for good things,
and for eternal gladness and mercy. 10 Look at the generations of the past and see.
Who ever put their trust in the Lord, and was put to shame?
Or who continued to fear him and was abandoned?
Or who called on him and was neglected? 11 For the Lord is full of compassion and mercy.
He forgives sins and saves in time of distress. 12 How terrible for fearful hearts, to powerless hands,
and to the sinner who follows two paths! 13 How terrible for the fainthearted!
For they do not believe, so they will not be protected.
195–175 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Jesus Ben Sira, Sirach

Against Novatian 18

Early Christian · Anonymous
While the way of mercy, brethren, is open, let us entreat God with full atonements; let us humble ourselves, that we may be exalted; let us acquiesce in the divine exhortation, whereby we may escape the day of the Lord and His anger. For thus He says: Look, my son, upon the nations of men, and know who has hoped in the Lord, and has been confounded; or has remained in His commandments, and has been forsaken; or has called upon Him, and He has despised him. For the Lord is loving and merciful, and forgiving in time of tribulation their sins to all those that seek after Him in truth. Therefore He says, First tell your sins, that you may be justified. Let there be first in your hand that prayer full of confession.
251–258 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Against Novatian

References

"... Clement of Rome probably also knew Wisdom. Admittedly, Wisdom is never cited as 'Scripture'. The matter involves brief citations or allusions that are never specially indicated as such. 1 Clement 34:1 probably alludes to Sirach 4:29b. On the other hand, similarities in the context of the great concluding prayer (2 Maccabees 7:35; 1 Clement 60:1; 61:2 and Sirach 2:11; 43:29-30; Tobit 3:2; 13:7 ...) can be explained in relation to common Jewish liturgical diction. Clement demonstrates more clearly than any other document from the New Testament period how the piety, ethos and liturgy of Diaspora Judaism could be adopted almost seamlessly by Christian communities ..."
Martin Hengel, The Septuagint as Christian Scripture: Its Prehistory and the Problem of Its Canon (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), 116.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Jesus Ben Sira, Sirach 2:11 and Against Novatian 18

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