Ecclesiasticus 10

¹A wise judge shall judge his people, and the principality of the wise shall be stable.

²According to the judge of the people, so also are his ministers: and what manner of man the ruler of a city is, such also are the inhabitants therein.

³An unwise king shall destroy his people: and cities shall be inhabited by the understanding of the prudent.

⁴The power of the earth is in the hand of God, and he will raise up a profitable ruler for a time over it.

⁵The prosperity of man is in the hand of God, & upon the face of the scribe he will put his honour.

⁶Any injury of thy neighbour remember not, and do nothing by works of injury.

⁷Pride is odious before God and men: and all the iniquity of the nations is execrable.

⁸A kingdom is translated from nation unto nation, because of injustices, and injuries, and contumelies, and diverse deceits.

⁹But nothing is more wicked than the covetous man. Why is earth and ashes proud?

¹⁰Nothing is more wicked than to love money. For he hath his soul also to sell: because in his life he hath cast forth his most inward things:

¹¹All power is of short life. Long sickness grieveth the Physician.

¹²Short sickness the Physician cutteth off at the first: so also the king is today, & tomorrow he shall die.

¹³For when a man shall die, he shall inherit serpents, and beasts, and worms.

¹⁴The beginning of the pride of man, is to apostatate from God:

¹⁵because his heart is departed from him that made him, for pride is the beginning of all sin: he that holdeth it, shall be filled with curses, & it shall subvert him in the end.

¹⁶Therefore hath our Lord dishonoured the congregations of the evil, & hath destroyed them even to the end.

¹⁷God hath destroyed the seats of proud Princes, and hath made the meek sit in their stead.

¹⁸God hath made the roots of the proud nations to wither, and hath planted the humble of the nations themselves.

¹⁹Our Lord hath subverted the lands of the gentiles, and hath destroyed them even to the foundation.

²⁰He hath made of them to wither, and hath destroyed them, and hath made the memory of them to cease from the earth.

²¹God hath destroyed the memory of the proud, and hath left the memory of them that are humble in understanding.

²²Pride was not created to men: nor wrath to the nation of women.

²³That seed of men shall be honoured, which feareth God: but that seed shall be dishonoured, which transgresseth the commandments of our Lord.

²⁴In the midst of brethren their ruler shall be in honour: and they that fear our Lord, shall be in his eyes.

²⁵The glory of the rich, of the honourable, and of the poor, is the fear of God:

²⁶Despise not the just man that is poor, and magnify not the sinful man that is rich.

²⁷The great one, and the judge, and the mighty is in honour, and there is none greater than he that feareth God.

²⁸Free men will serve a servant that is wise: and a man that is prudent and hath discipline will not murmur being rebuked, and the ignorant shall not be honoured.

²⁹Extol not thyself in doing thy work, and linger not in the time of distress:

³⁰better is he that worketh, and aboundeth in all things, than he that glorieth, and lacketh bread.

³¹Son in mildness keep thy soul, and give him honour according to his desert.

³²Him that sinneth against his own soul who shall justify? And who shall honour him that dishonoureth his own soul?

³³The poor man is glorified by his discipline and fear: & there is a man that is honoured for his substance.

³⁴But he that is glorified in poverty, how much more in substance? And he that is glorified in substance, let him fear poverty.