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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 2:4 and Didache 3:10

Deuterocanon · Early Christian

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Summary

The Didache draws on Jewish wisdom traditions, echoing Sirach, which teaches patience and to accept life’s difficult challenges. The Didache highlights how early Christian tradition relied on Jewish wisdom texts to form its teaching.

Passages

Jesus Ben Sira, Sirach 2:4

Deuterocanon · Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus
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.
195–175 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Jesus Ben Sira, Sirach

Didache 3:10

Early Christian
8 Be patient, merciful, honest, calm, and good, always mindful of the teachings you have heard. 9 Don’t be arrogant or let yourself become presumptuous. Don’t associate with arrogant people, but walk with those who are righteous and humble. 10 Accept whatever happens to you as good, knowing that nothing happens without God’s involvement.
90–120 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Didache

References

"... At the same time, however, materials from Sirach are not employed as the mainstay of the Two Ways tradition ... these passages are largely drawn from the Deuteronomistic tradition, with Sirach standing only secondarily in the background. As further example, Didache 2–3, is largely oriented around the absolute prohibitions of the Decalogue, supported by other warnings that serve as a fence against the possibility that the listener may violate the restrictions of Scripture. In this structure, Sirach appears only twice: (2:4), where one is warned not to be double-tongued—an important warning but hardly the apex of the passage—and (3:10), where one is counseled to receive all things as good ..."
Clayton N. Jefford, “The Wisdom of Sirach and the Glue of the Matthew–Didache Tradition,” in Intertextuality in the Second Century, ed. D. Jeffrey Bingham and Clayton N. Jefford, BAC 11 (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 8–23.

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 2:4 and Didache 3:10

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