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Sirach

Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus

About this book

Trust in God During Trials

Chapter 2

1 My son, if you come to serve the Lord, prepare your soul for temptation.⁠ 2 Set your heart aright, constantly endure, and don’t make haste in time of calamity. 3 Cling to him, and don’t depart, that you may be increased at your latter end. 4 Accept whatever is brought upon you, and be patient when you suffer humiliation.⁠ 5 For gold is tried in the fire, and acceptable men 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. Don’t turn aside, lest you 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 old, and see: Who ever put his trust in the Lord, and was ashamed? Or who remained in his fear, and was forsaken? Or who called upon him, and he neglected him? 11 For the Lord is full of compassion and mercy. He forgives sins and saves in time of affliction.⁠ 12 Woe to fearful hearts, to faint hands, and to the sinner who goes two ways! 13 Woe to the faint heart! For it doesn’t believe. Therefore it won’t be defended. 14 Woe to you who have lost your patience! And what will you all do when the Lord visits you? 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 men; for as his majesty is, so also is his mercy.

Texts in conversation

Compare Sirach 2:8 and Colossians 3:25

Deuterocanon · New Testament

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Summary

Colossians echoes wisdom traditions like Sirach that connect the fear of God with the promise of reward. Sirach uses the hope of reward to teach endurance, and Colossians uses similar language to teach endurance in good works.

Passages

Sirach 2:8

Deuterocanon · Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus
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. Don’t turn aside, lest you 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.
195–180 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Sirach

Colossians 3:25

New Testament
23 Whatever you are doing, work at it with enthusiasm, as to the Lord and not for people, 24 because you know that you will receive your inheritance from the Lord as the reward. Serve the Lord Christ. 25 For the one who does wrong will be repaid for his wrong, and there are no exceptions.
80–85 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Colossians

References

"... Colossians contains no explicit quotations and few allusions to the Old Testament. The most distinct Old Testament echoes occur in Colossians 3. The claim that Christ is “ seated at the right hand of God ” (3:1) clearly alludes to Psalm 110:1, the most frequent intertext in the New Testament (see, e.g., Hay 1973). Additionally, talk of a new nature's “being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator” in 3:10 is “an unavoidable allusion to Genesis 1:26f.” (Wolter 1993:180). Furthermore, the call for slaves to fear the Lord (3:22) and the assertion that there is no partiality (with God [3:25]) cohere with Old Testament texts such as Deuteronomy 10:20, Proverbs 1:7; 3:7, and Ecclesiastes 5:7 in the first instance (compare Sirach 1:11–30; 2:7–9) and Deuteronomy 10:17 in the second (compare Sirach 35:15). Interestingly, 2 Chronicles 19:7 conjoins fear of the Lord on the one hand with the Lord's impartiality on the other ..."
Troy W. Martin and Todd D. Still, “Colossians,” in The Blackwell Companion to the New Testament, ed. David E. Aune, The Blackwell Companions to Religion (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 495.

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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Sirach 2:8 and Colossians 3:25

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