Sirach 36

A Prayer for God’s People

³⁶Have mercy upon us, O God^w of all,

²and put all the nations in fear of you.

³Lift up your hand against foreign nations

and let them see your might.^*

⁴As you have used us to show your holiness to them,

so use them to show your glory to us.^*

⁵Then they will know,^x as we have known,

that there is no God but you, O Lord.^*

⁶Give new signs and work other wonders;

⁷make your hand and right arm glorious.

⁸Rouse your anger and pour out your wrath;^*

⁹destroy the adversary and wipe out the enemy.

¹⁰Hasten the day, and remember the appointed time,^y

and let people recount your mighty deeds.

¹¹Let survivors be consumed in the fiery wrath,

and may those who harm your people meet destruction.

¹²Crush the heads of hostile rulers

who say, “There is no one but ourselves.”^*

¹³Gather all the tribes of Jacob,^z*

¹⁶and give them their inheritance, as at the beginning.

¹⁷Have mercy, O Lord, on the people called by your name,

on Israel, whom you have named^a your firstborn.^*

¹⁸Have pity on the city of your sanctuary,^b

Jerusalem, the place of your dwelling.^c*

¹⁹Fill Zion with your majesty^d

and your temple^e with your glory.^*

²⁰Bear witness to those whom you created in the beginning,

and fulfill the prophecies spoken in your name.

²¹Reward those who wait for you,

and let your prophets be found trustworthy.^*

²²Hear, O Lord, the prayer of your servants, according to your goodwill toward^f your people,

and all who are on the earth will know

that you are the Lord, the God of the ages.^*

Concerning Discrimination

²³The stomach will take any food,

yet one food is better than another.

²⁴As the palate tastes the kinds of game,

so an intelligent mind detects false words.^*

²⁵A perverse mind will cause grief,

but a person with experience will pay him back.^*

²⁶A woman will accept any man as a husband,

but one daughter is preferable to another.

²⁷A woman’s beauty lights up a man’s face,

and there is nothing he desires more.^*

²⁸If kindness and humility mark her speech,

her husband is more fortunate than other men.^*

²⁹He who acquires a wife gets his best possession,^g

a helper fit for him and a pillar of support.^h*

³⁰Where there is no fence, the property will be plundered,

and where there is no wife, a man will become a fugitive and a wanderer.^i*

³¹For who will trust a nimble robber

who skips from city to city?

So who will trust a man who has no nest

but lodges wherever nighttime finds him?^*