"... Ben Sira presents a kind of drama of salvation—salvation not in the sense of deliverance from something but as the bestowal of well-being, blessing, and life. His theological starting point is the biblical (especially the Deuteronomic) view of covenant and Torah. Through the covenant, God bestowed on Israel its status as the chosen people. In the same covenant, God set the divine commandments before them. The alternative possibilities to obey and disobey these commandments would lead like two roads to blessing and life or to curse and death. (On the ambiguities of the relationship between Ben Sira and the Deuteronomic tradition, see Mack, Wisdom and Hebrew Epic, 113, 120. However, on Ben Sira’s use of a two-ways theology that is related to Deuteronomy: Sirach 15:17; Deuteronomy 30:15, see Nickelsburg, Resurrection, 164 n. 21. The vitalistic language in 24:12–22 and its connection with the Mosaic Torah in verse 23 fits well with the notion of covenantal blessing as life) One could not short-circuit the process that led from the grace of covenantal election to the fullness of covenantal blessing and life. Responsible obedience to the commandments of Torah was an integral and necessary part of the covenant. In this sense Torah was a gift that brought the possibility of life ..."