Ecclesiasticus 2

¹Son, coming to the service of God, stand in justice, and in fear, & prepare thy soul to tentation.

²Repress thy heart, & sustain: incline thine ear, & receive the words of understanding, and make no haste in the time of obduction.

³Sustain the sustentations of God: be joined to God, and sustain, that thy life may increase in the later end.

⁴All that shall be applied to thee, receive: and in sorrow sustain, and in thy humiliation have patience:

⁵for gold and silver are tried in the fire, but acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation.

⁶Believe God, and he will recover thee: and direct thy way, and hope in him. Keep his fear, and grow old therein.

⁷Ye that fear our Lord, expect his mercy: & decline not from him, lest ye fall.

⁸Ye that fear our Lord, believe him, & your reward shall not be void.

⁹Ye that fear our Lord hope in him: and mercy shall come to you for your delectation.

¹⁰Ye that fear our Lord, love him, & your hearts shall be illuminated.

¹¹Children behold the nations of men: and know ye that none hath hoped in our Lord, and hath been confounded.

¹²For who hath continued in his commandment, and hath been forsaken? Or who hath invocated him, and he despised him?

¹³Because God is pitiful and merciful, and will forgive sins in the day of tribulation: and he is protector to all that seek him in truth.

¹⁴Woe to them of a double heart, & to wicked lips, and to the hands that do evil, and to the sinner that goeth on the earth two ways.

¹⁵Woe to them that be dissolute of heart, which believe not God: and therefore they shall not be protected of him.

¹⁶Woe be to them, that have lost patience, and that have forsaken the right ways, and have declined into perverse ways.

¹⁷And what will they do, when our Lord shall begin to look on them?

¹⁸They that fear our Lord, will not be incredulous to his word: and they that love him, will keep his way.

¹⁹They that fear our Lord, will seek after the things that are well pleasing to him: and they that love him, shall be filled with his law.

²⁰They that fear our Lord, will prepare their hearts, and in his sight will sanctify their souls.

²¹They that fear our Lord, keep his commandments, and will have patience even until his visitation,

²²saying: If we do not penance, we shall fall into the hands of our Lord, and not into the hands of men.

²³For according to his greatness, so also his mercy is with him.