Wisdom of Ben Sira 10:6-18
New Catholic Bible
The Sin of Pride[a]
6 Do not become angry at every offense committed by your neighbor,
and do not resort to acts of violence.
7 Arrogance is hateful in the sight of both the Lord and man,
and injustice is abhorrent to both.
8 Sovereignty passes from nation to nation
as the result of injustice, arrogance, and wealth.
[Nothing is more evil than one who loves money,
for such a person places his soul on sale.]
9 [b]For what reason are dust and ashes proud?
Even in life the body is subject to decay.
10 A lengthy illness baffles the doctor;
the king of today will be a corpse tomorrow.
11 One who dies receives only an inheritance
of maggots and wild animals[c] and worms.
12 The beginning of human pride is the forsaking of the Lord,
the withdrawal of one’s heart from its Maker.
13 For pride is the beginning of sin,
and those who cling to it pour forth filth.
For this reason God afflicts them with unheard-of calamities
and destroys them completely.
14 The Lord overthrows the throne of rulers
and seats the humble in their place.
15 The Lord plucks up the roots of the nations[d]
and plants the lowly in their place.
16 The Lord lays waste the territory of the nations
and destroys them to the very foundations of the earth.
17 He sweeps away every trace of some of the nations
and blots out the memory of them from the earth.
18 Pride was not created for men,
nor violent anger for one born of woman.
Footnotes
- Wisdom of Ben Sira 10:6 The author repeats this time after time: the supreme sin is to want to put oneself above the Creator and to despise human solidarity. Nothing is more intolerable, and it is to reestablish the order of things that God punishes the proud. The sage is evidently thinking of the examples from the political life of his day, which was filled with the succession of rival dynasties (v. 8) and the collapse of more than one pretentious regime (vv. 16-20). This passage reminds us of the canticle of Hannah (1 Sam 2:4-8), which inspired the Magnificat (Lk 1:46-52).
- Wisdom of Ben Sira 10:9 Life is so uncertain that no one has reason to be proud. One may be a king today but gone tomorrow!
- Wisdom of Ben Sira 10:11 Wild animals: Hebrew reads: “vermin.”
- Wisdom of Ben Sira 10:15 Nations: some early MSS read: “proud nations.”
