Ecclesiasticus, 28

1. Whoever exacts vengeance will experience the vengeance of the Lord, who keeps strict account of sin.

2. Pardon your neighbour any wrongs done to you, and when you pray, your sins will be forgiven.

3. If anyone nurses anger against another, can one then demand compassion from the Lord?

4. Showing no pity for someone like oneself, can one then plead for one's own sins?

5. Mere creature of flesh, yet cherishing resentment!-who will forgive one for sinning?

6. Remember the last things, and stop hating, corruption and death, and be faithful to the commandments.

7. Remember the commandments, and do not bear your fellow ill-will, remember the covenant of the Most High, and ignore the offence.

8. Avoid quarrelling and you will sin less; for the hot-tempered provokes quarrels,

9. a sinner sows trouble between friends, introducing discord among the peaceful.

10. The way a fire burns depends on its fuel, a quarrel spreads in proportion to its violence; a man's rage depends on his strength, his fury grows fiercer in proportion to his wealth.

11. A sudden quarrel kindles fire, a hasty dispute leads to bloodshed.

12. Blow on a spark and up it flares, spit on it and out it goes; both are the effects of your mouth.

13. A curse on the scandal-monger and double-talker, such a person has ruined many who lived in concord.

14. That third tongue has shattered the peace of many and driven them from nation to nation; it has pulled down fortified cities, and overthrown the houses of the great.

15. The third tongue has had upright wives divorced, depriving them of reward for their hard work.

16. No one who listens to it will ever know peace of mind, will ever live in peace again.

17. A stroke of the whip raises a weal, but a stroke of the tongue breaks bones.

18. Many have fallen by the edge of the sword, but many more have fallen by the tongue.

19. Blessed is anyone who has been sheltered from it, and has not experienced its fury, who has not dragged its yoke about, or been bound in its chains;

20. for its yoke is an iron yoke, its chains are bronze chains;

21. the death it inflicts is a miserable death, Sheol is preferable to it.

22. It cannot gain a hold over the devout, they are not burnt by its flames.

23. Those who desert the Lord will fall into it, it will flare up inextinguishably among them, it will be let loose against them like a lion, it will tear them like a leopard.

24. Be sure you put a thorn-hedge round your property, lock away your silver and gold;

25. then make scales and weights for your words, and put a door with bolts across your mouth.

26. Take care you take no false step through it, in case you fall a prey to him who lies in wait.