Sirach — Chapter 23 — Hebrew–Greek comparison
Prayer for Discipline and Warnings against Adultery
| Hebrew–English · Literal-Smooth | Greek–English · Literal-Smooth | Classification & Notes |
|---|---|---|
No Hebrew text is available in the selected manuscript coverage for this unit. This is a source gap, not a classified omission. | Lord, Father and Master of my life, do not abandon me to their counsel; do not let me fall through them. | Not classified. No paired Hebrew reading is supplied. Inherited Greek note23:1 Their and them refer back to the speech imagery of 22:27; no enemies are inserted as their stated antecedent. |
No Hebrew text is available in the selected manuscript coverage for this unit. This is a source gap, not a classified omission. | 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, | Not classified. No paired Hebrew reading is supplied. Inherited Greek note23:2 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. |
No Hebrew text is available in the selected manuscript coverage for this unit. This is a source gap, not a classified omission. | 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? | Not classified. No paired Hebrew reading is supplied. |
No Hebrew text is available in the selected manuscript coverage for this unit. This is a source gap, not a classified omission. | Lord, Father and God of my life, do not give me haughty eyes, | Not classified. No paired Hebrew reading is supplied. |
No Hebrew text is available in the selected manuscript coverage for this unit. This is a source gap, not a classified omission. | and turn desire away from me. | Not classified. No paired Hebrew reading is supplied. |
No Hebrew text is available in the selected manuscript coverage for this unit. This is a source gap, not a classified omission. | Do not let the appetite of the belly and sexual intercourse overtake me, and do not hand me over to a shameless soul. | Not classified. No paired Hebrew reading is supplied. Inherited Greek note23:6 Sexual intercourse renders συνουσιασμός directly; the prayer seeks freedom from its domination, without silently replacing the term with a particular offense. |
No Hebrew text is available in the selected manuscript coverage for this unit. This is a source gap, not a classified omission. | Listen, children, to discipline of the mouth; the one who keeps it will certainly not be caught. | Not classified. No paired Hebrew reading is supplied. |
No Hebrew text is available in the selected manuscript coverage for this unit. This is a source gap, not a classified omission. | A sinner will be caught by his lips, and an abusive person and a proud person will stumble through them. | Not classified. No paired Hebrew reading is supplied. |
No Hebrew text is available in the selected manuscript coverage for this unit. This is a source gap, not a classified omission. | Do not accustom your mouth to an oath, and do not make a habit of naming the Holy One. | Not classified. No paired Hebrew reading is supplied. |
No Hebrew text is available in the selected manuscript coverage for this unit. This is a source gap, not a classified omission. | 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. | Not classified. No paired Hebrew reading is supplied. Inherited Greek note23:10 The comparison presupposes the ancient coercive examination of slaves; its bruises and the repeated invocation are retained. |
Hebrew 23:11 · translated A man of oaths will be filled with guilt, and a plague will not depart from his house. | 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. | Similar · Hebrew 23:11 — Only the first portion is excerpted in C; Greek continues with additional conditions. Inherited Greek note23:11 The three conditional clauses and twice are preserved. |
No Hebrew text is available in the selected manuscript coverage for this unit. This is a source gap, not a classified omission. | 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. | Not classified. No paired Hebrew reading is supplied. Inherited Greek note23:12 The death-comparable expression is not identified more precisely than the source does. |
No Hebrew text is available in the selected manuscript coverage for this unit. This is a source gap, not a classified omission. | Do not accustom your mouth to crude ignorance, for sinful speech is in it. | Not classified. No paired Hebrew reading is supplied. |
No Hebrew text is available in the selected manuscript coverage for this unit. This is a source gap, not a classified omission. | 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. | Not classified. No paired Hebrew reading is supplied. Inherited Greek note23:14 The parental remembrance, public setting, and regret are all retained. |
No Hebrew text is available in the selected manuscript coverage for this unit. This is a source gap, not a classified omission. | A person accustomed to words of reproach will certainly not be instructed throughout all his days. | Not classified. No paired Hebrew reading is supplied. |
No Hebrew text is available in the selected manuscript coverage for this unit. This is a source gap, not a classified omission. | Two kinds multiply sins, and the third will bring wrath: | Not classified. No paired Hebrew reading is supplied. |
No Hebrew text is available in the selected manuscript coverage for this unit. This is a source gap, not a classified omission. | 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. | Not classified. No paired Hebrew reading is supplied. Inherited Greek note23:17 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. |
No Hebrew text is available in the selected manuscript coverage for this unit. This is a source gap, not a classified omission. | 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.” | Not classified. No paired Hebrew reading is supplied. |
No Hebrew text is available in the selected manuscript coverage for this unit. This is a source gap, not a classified omission. | 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. | Not classified. No paired Hebrew reading is supplied. Inherited Greek note23:19 Ten thousand times renders μυριοπλασίως; the intensity is preserved rather than reduced to a general brighter. |
No Hebrew text is available in the selected manuscript coverage for this unit. This is a source gap, not a classified omission. | Before all things were created, they were known to Him, and likewise after they were completed. | Not classified. No paired Hebrew reading is supplied. |
No Hebrew text is available in the selected manuscript coverage for this unit. This is a source gap, not a classified omission. | This man will receive retribution in the city’s squares and be seized where he did not suspect it. | Not classified. No paired Hebrew reading is supplied. |
No Hebrew text is available in the selected manuscript coverage for this unit. This is a source gap, not a classified omission. | So also a woman who leaves her husband and presents an heir from another man. | Not classified. No paired Hebrew reading is supplied. |
No Hebrew text is available in the selected manuscript coverage for this unit. This is a source gap, not a classified omission. | 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. | Not classified. No paired Hebrew reading is supplied. Inherited Greek note23:23 The threefold enumeration and the children’s stated parentage are retained. |
No Hebrew text is available in the selected manuscript coverage for this unit. This is a source gap, not a classified omission. | She will be brought before the assembly, and there will be a visitation upon her children. | Not classified. No paired Hebrew reading is supplied. Inherited Greek note23:24 Visitation leaves the precise form of the reckoning unspecified. |
No Hebrew text is available in the selected manuscript coverage for this unit. This is a source gap, not a classified omission. | Her children will not spread out into a root, and her branches will not bear fruit. | Not classified. No paired Hebrew reading is supplied. Inherited Greek note23:25 The offspring imagery is preserved in its ancient judgment context. |
No Hebrew text is available in the selected manuscript coverage for this unit. This is a source gap, not a classified omission. | She will leave her memory as a curse, and her reproach will not be erased. | Not classified. No paired Hebrew reading is supplied. |
No Hebrew text is available in the selected manuscript coverage for this unit. This is a source gap, not a classified omission. | 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. | Not classified. No paired Hebrew reading is supplied. |
Source and numbering
Hebrew English is newly translated from the manuscript-specific transcriptions in The Book of Ben Sira portal. Each translated unit identifies its selected witness and folio. This is a selected-witness working edition, not an exhaustive collation of every manuscript or a reconstruction of lost Hebrew. Brackets and fragmentary status identify uncertainty; no Greek text has been back-translated to fill Hebrew gaps.
The Greek-source English and its notes are inherited from the existing Sirach edition. The comparison categories are provisional editorial assessments against that English; this update is not a fresh verification of every Greek reading or its apparatus.
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.