4 Maccabees 2:5-7

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

⁵ Thus the law says, “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or anything that is your neighbor’s.”^{(A) 6} In fact, since the law has told us not to covet, I could prove to you all the more that reason is able to control desires.

Just so it is with the passions that hinder one from justice. ⁷ Otherwise how could it be that someone who is habitually a solitary eater, a glutton, or even a drunkard can learn a better way, unless reason is clearly lord of the passions?^(B)