Sirach — Chapter 23
Prayer for Discipline and Warnings against Adultery
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Hebrew–Greek comparison and notes · III. Wisdom
23:1 Lord, Father and Master of my life, do not abandon me to their counsel; do not let me fall through them.
23:2 Who will set lashes over my thought and wisdom’s discipline over my heart, so that they may not spare my errors of ignorance, and He may certainly not pass over their sins,
23:3 so that my errors of ignorance do not multiply and my sins increase, and I fall before my adversaries and my enemy gloat over me?
23:4 Lord, Father and God of my life, do not give me haughty eyes,
23:5 and turn desire away from me.
23:6 Do not let the appetite of the belly and sexual intercourse overtake me, and do not hand me over to a shameless soul.
23:7 Listen, children, to discipline of the mouth; the one who keeps it will certainly not be caught.
23:8 A sinner will be caught by his lips, and an abusive person and a proud person will stumble through them.
23:9 Do not accustom your mouth to an oath, and do not make a habit of naming the Holy One.
23:10 For just as a household slave under continual examination will not be free of bruises, so the one who continually swears and invokes the name will certainly not be cleansed from sin.
23:11 A man of many oaths will be filled with lawlessness, and a scourge will not depart from his house. If he offends, his sin is upon him; if he disregards it, he has sinned twice. If he swore in vain, he will not be justified, for his house will be filled with calamities.
23:12 There is an expression comparable to death; let it not be found in Jacob’s inheritance. For all these things will depart from the godly, and they will not wallow in sins.
23:13 Do not accustom your mouth to crude ignorance, for sinful speech is in it.
23:14 Remember your father and mother, for you sit among dignitaries, lest you forget yourself before them and become foolish through your habit; then you will wish you had not been born and curse the day of your birth.
23:15 A person accustomed to words of reproach will certainly not be instructed throughout all his days.
23:16 Two kinds multiply sins, and the third will bring wrath:
23:17 a heated soul, like a burning fire, will not be quenched until it is consumed; a sexually immoral man in his fleshly body will not stop until he kindles a fire. Every loaf is sweet to a sexually immoral man; he will not cease until he dies.
23:18 A man who transgresses from his marriage bed says in his soul, “Who sees me? Darkness is around me, and the walls cover me; no one sees me. What should I fear? The Most High will certainly not remember my sins.”
23:19 Human eyes are what he fears; he does not know that the Lord’s eyes are ten thousand times brighter than the sun, surveying every human way and observing hidden places.
23:20 Before all things were created, they were known to Him, and likewise after they were completed.
23:21 This man will receive retribution in the city’s squares and be seized where he did not suspect it.
23:22 So also a woman who leaves her husband and presents an heir from another man.
23:23 For first she disobeyed the law of the Most High; second she wronged her husband; and third she committed adultery in sexual immorality and presented children from another man.
23:24 She will be brought before the assembly, and there will be a visitation upon her children.
23:25 Her children will not spread out into a root, and her branches will not bear fruit.
23:26 She will leave her memory as a curse, and her reproach will not be erased.
23:27 Those left behind will know that nothing is better than the fear of the Lord, and nothing sweeter than attending to the Lord’s commandments.
Source and editorial notes
Working translation preserved from the recovered manuscript of 8 September 2026. Declared source: Septuaginta, Rahlfs–Hanhart, 2006, Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, publisher’s Greek main text. Independent linguistic and critical-apparatus review remains outstanding. Source-access and reception claims in the inherited notes have not been freshly revalidated. Chapter and section headings are editorial.
The translator’s prologue is separate from the 51 chapters. Its eight source units map to publisher labels 1, 1a–1g; main-text 1:1 maps to 1h. Source 5:15 includes material often numbered 6:1, so chapter 6 begins at 6:2. Source label gaps are preserved; no text is invented.
23:1 Their and them refer back to the speech imagery of 22:27; no enemies are inserted as their stated antecedent.
23:2 The shift from plural they to singular He follows the printed verbs. The exact antecedents of their sins remain compressed; no harmonizing replacement of the pronouns is made.
23:6 Sexual intercourse renders συνουσιασμός directly; the prayer seeks freedom from its domination, without silently replacing the term with a particular offense.
23:10 The comparison presupposes the ancient coercive examination of slaves; its bruises and the repeated invocation are retained.
23:11 The three conditional clauses and twice are preserved.
23:12 The death-comparable expression is not identified more precisely than the source does.
23:14 The parental remembrance, public setting, and regret are all retained.
23:17 All three descriptions are retained in the source’s single verse. Until he kindles a fire follows the active wording; the source does not explicitly say here that fire consumes him.
23:19 Ten thousand times renders μυριοπλασίως; the intensity is preserved rather than reduced to a general brighter.
23:23 The threefold enumeration and the children’s stated parentage are retained.
23:24 Visitation leaves the precise form of the reckoning unspecified.
23:25 The offspring imagery is preserved in its ancient judgment context.