Sirach 25

Common English Bible

³ If you have gathered nothing
in your youth,
    how then will you find anything
    in your old age?
⁴ How beautiful is sound judgment
in gray-haired women
    and finding good advice in elderly men!
⁵ How beautiful is wisdom in the aged
    and thought and counsel
    in those who are respectable!
⁶ Experience is the crown of the aged
    and respecting the Lord
    is their claim to fame.
⁷ In my heart, I would consider
nine conditions to be happy,
        and I’ll name a tenth with my tongue—
    people who are made glad
    by their children,
    and who live to see the downfall
of their enemies.
⁸     Happy are those
    who live with sensible wives,^[a]
    who don’t slip with their tongue,
    and who haven’t been a servant to one inferior to themselves.
⁹     Happy is the one
    who has gained good sense
        and who is passing this along
        to listening ears.
¹⁰     How great is one who finds Wisdom,
        but no one does better
        than the one who fears the Lord.
¹¹     Fear of the Lord surpasses everything;
        those who possess it are incomparable.^[b]

¹⁶ I would rather live with a lion or a serpent
    than live with a wicked woman.
¹⁷ A woman’s wickedness
changes her appearance,
    and it darkens her face like that of a bear.
¹⁸ Her husband sits down among
his neighbors
    and unintentionally groans bitterly.
¹⁹ Any evil is small
when compared to a woman’s evil;
    may she experience a sinner’s fate.
²⁰ A talkative wife for a quiet husband
    is like a sand dune
    beneath the feet of an elderly person.
²¹ Don’t fall for a woman’s beauty,
    and don’t long for a woman.
²²     There will be anger, shamelessness,
    and utter disgrace
    when a wife provides for her husband.
²³ A wicked wife causes a humiliated heart,
a gloomy face,
    and a wounded heart.
Drooping hands and weakened knees
    come from a woman
    who doesn’t make her husband happy.
²⁴ Sin began with a woman,
    and because of her all of us die.
²⁵ Don’t allow an outlet for water,
    and don’t give a wicked wife
    freedom to speak.
²⁶ If she doesn’t do as you say,
    divorce her.^[d]