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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 2:5 and Cyprian, Treatises 7:9

Deuterocanon · Early Christian

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Summary

The Christian theologian Cyprian urges believers to endure difficulty, using the language of Sirach to compare the faithful to gold tested by fire. Early Christian authors readily turned to this Jewish wisdom text for theological and moral guidance.

Passages

Jesus Ben Sira, Sirach 2:5

Deuterocanon · Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus
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. 7 All you who fear the Lord, wait for his mercy.
Do not turn aside, so that you do not fall.
195–175 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Jesus Ben Sira, Sirach

Cyprian, Treatises 7:9

Early Christian
9 Indeed, if a Christian knows and holds to the condition and law on which he believed, he will know that he must labor in the world more than others, since he has more to struggle with the devil’s assaults. Divine Scripture teaches and forewarns, saying: “Son, when you come to the service of God, stand in righteousness and fear, and prepare your soul for temptation”; and again: “In pain endure, and in your humiliation have patience, for gold and silver are tried in the fire, and acceptable people in the furnace of humiliation.”
245–260 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Cyprian, Treatises

References

"... The eighty-fifth of the Apostolical Canons provides a list of the books in the Hebrew Canon and additionally includes the first three books of the Maccabees and the Wisdom of Sirach. However, these last four books are not included in the Canon, although the Wisdom of Sirach is specially recommended for the instruction of the young. In the Apostolical Constitutions, specifically in sections vi. 14 and 15 (also known as the Didascalia), quotations from Sirach are given with the same formula as those from the books of the Hebrew Canon. Yet, in section ii. 57 of the same work, there is no mention of any of the books of the Apocrypha. On the other hand, at the Council of Hippo in A.D. 393, Sirach was specially mentioned as one of the canonical books. This was further supported at the Council of Carthage in A.D. 397, where the "five books of Solomon," namely Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Wisdom, and Sirach, were reckoned among the canonical Scriptures. (Between the years A.D. 390 and 419 no less than six councils were held in Africa, and four of these at Carthage. For a time, under the inspiration of Aurelius and Augustine, the Church of Tertullian and Cyprian was filled with a new life before its fatal desolation ...) This decision was also confirmed by the Council of Carthage in A.D. 419. As we delve into what the Church Fathers have said regarding the canonicity of the book, our attention first turns to the Eastern Church ..."
R. H. Charles, The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament (Oxford University Press, 1913), 299.

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 2:5 and Cyprian, Treatises 7:9

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