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Sirach

Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus

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Chapter 23

1 O Lord, Father and Master of my life, don’t abandon me to their counsel. Don’t let me fall because of them. 2 Who will set scourges over my thought, and a discipline of wisdom over my heart, that they do not spare me for my errors, and not overlook their sins? 3 Otherwise my errors might be multiplied, and my sins abound, I fall before my adversaries, and my enemy rejoice over me. 4 O Lord, Father and God of my life, don’t give me a haughty eyes,⁠ 5 and turn away evil desire from me. 6 Let neither gluttony nor lust overtake me. Don’t give me over to a shameless mind.⁠ 7 Listen, my children, to the discipline of the mouth. He who keeps it will not be caught.⁠ 8 The sinner will be overpowered through his lips. By them, the insulter and the arrogant will stumble. 9 Don’t accustom your mouth to an oath, and don’t be accustomed to naming the Holy One,⁠ 10 for as a servant who is continually scourged will not lack bruises, so he also who swears and continually utters the Name will not be cleansed from sin. 11 A man of many oaths will be filled with iniquity. The scourge will not depart from his house. If he offends, his sin will be upon him. If he disregards it, he has sinned doubly. If he has sworn falsely, he will not be justified, for his house will be filled with calamities. 12 There is a manner of speech that is clothed with death. Let it not be found in the heritage of Jacob, for all these things will be far from the godly, and they will not wallow in sins. 13 Don’t accustom your mouth to gross rudeness, for it involves sinful speech. 14 Remember your father and your mother, for you sit in the midst of great men, that you not be forgetful before them, and become a fool by your bad habit; so you may wish that you had not been born, and curse the day of your birth. 15 A man who is accustomed to abusive language won’t be corrected all the days of his life. 16 Two sorts of people multiply sins, and the third will bring wrath: a hot passion, like a burning fire, will not be quenched until it is consumed; a fornicator in the body of his flesh will never cease until he has burned out the fire. 17 All bread is sweet to a fornicator. He will not cease until he dies. 18 A man who goes astray from his own marriage bed says in his heart, “Who sees me? Darkness is around me, and the walls hide me. No one sees me. Of whom am I afraid? The Most High will not remember my sins.”⁠ 19 The eyes of men are his terror. He doesn’t know that the eyes of the Lord are ten thousand times brighter than the sun,⁠ seeing all the ways of men, and looking into secret places.⁠ 20 All things were known to him before they were created, and also after they were completed. 21 This man will be punished in the streets of the city. He will be seized where he least expects it.⁠ 22 So also is a wife who leaves her husband, and produces an heir by another man. 23 For first, she was disobedient in the law of the Most High. Second, she trespassed against her own husband. Third, she played the adulteress in fornication, and had children by another man. 24 She shall be brought out into the congregation. Her punishment will extend to her children. 25 Her children will not take root. Her branches will bear no fruit.⁠ 26 She will leave her memory for a curse. Her reproach won’t be blotted out. 27 And those who are left behind will know that there is nothing better than the fear of the Lord, and nothing sweeter than to heed the commandments of the Lord.

Texts in conversation

Compare Sirach 23:18 and Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor 2.10

Deuterocanon · Early Christian

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Summary

The Christian theologian Clement of Alexandria uses Sirach as an authoritative source for teaching that God sees all hidden sins, demonstrating how the Jewish wisdom text influenced early Christian teaching and tradition.

Passages

Sirach 23:18

Deuterocanon · Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus
16 Two sorts of people multiply sins, and the third will bring wrath: a hot passion, like a burning fire, will not be quenched until it is consumed; a fornicator in the body of his flesh will never cease until he has burned out the fire. 17 All bread is sweet to a fornicator. He will not cease until he dies. 18 A man who goes astray from his own marriage bed says in his heart, “Who sees me? Darkness is around me, and the walls hide me. No one sees me. Of whom am I afraid? The Most High will not remember my sins.” 19 The eyes of men are his terror. He doesn’t know that the eyes of the Lord are ten thousand times brighter than the sun, seeing all the ways of men, and looking into secret places. 20 All things were known to him before they were created, and also after they were completed.
195–180 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Sirach

Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor 2.10

Early Christian · Paedagogus
For many think such things to be pleasures only which are against nature, such as these sins of theirs. And those who are better than they, know them to be sins, but are overcome by pleasures, and darkness is the veil of their vicious practices. For he violates his marriage adulterously who uses it in a meretricious way, and hears not the voice of the Instructor, crying, The man who ascends his bed, who says in his soul, Who sees me? Darkness is around me, and the walls are my covering, and no one sees my sins. Why do I fear lest the Highest will remember? Most wretched is such a man, dreading men's eyes alone, and thinking that he will escape the observation of God. For he knows not, says the Scripture, that brighter ten thousand times than the sun are the eyes of the Most High, which look on all the ways of men, and cast their glance into hidden parts. Thus again the Instructor threatens them, speaking by Isaiah: Woe be to those who take counsel in secret, and say, Who sees us? For one may escape the light of sense, but that of the mind it is impossible to escape.

References

"... The eighty-fifth of the Apostolical Canons gives a list of the books of the Hebrew Canon, and adds the first three books of the Maccabees and the Wisdom of Sirach; these last four are not, however, included in the Canon, though the Wisdom of Sirach is specially recommended for the instruction of the young. Again, in the Apostolical Constitutions, 6:14, 15, quotations from Sirach are given with the same formula as those from the books of the Hebrew Canon, but in the list given in 2:57 of the same work, there is no mention of any of the books of the Apocrypha ... The evidence of Clement of Alexandria is conflicting; in his Paedagogus he quotes very often from Sirach, and speaks of it as 'scripture', from which it would evidently appear that he regarded it as canonical Scripture; but, according to Eusebius, Clement reckoned Sirach among the 'Antilegomena', for in speaking of Clement's works he mentions the Stromateis, or 'Medleys', and says: 'He quotes in them passages from the disputed Scriptures, the so-called Wisdom of Solomon, for example, and of Jesus the son of Sirach, and the Epistle to the Hebrews, and those of Barnabas, Clement, and Jude ..."
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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Sirach 23:18 and Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor 2.10

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