What does Ecclesiasticus Chapter 2 say, and which statements belong to its speaker?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

The entering servant is urged to prepare, listen and endure humiliation. Commands to trust and historical rhetorical questions precede woes against duplicity. Closing penance wording retains its negative condition.

Chapter breakdown

Ecclesiasticus 2 tells the son entering God's service to stand in justice and fear and prepare for temptation. Humble heart, endurance, listening and avoiding haste in cloudy times are urged. Patience and union with God anticipate life increased at the end. Accept what comes and endure sorrow and humiliation; gold and silver are tried by fire and acceptable people by humiliation. Believe God for recovery, direct the way, trust, retain fear and grow old therein.

Those fearing God are told to await mercy without turning aside, believe for unvoided reward, hope for delightful mercy and love for enlightened hearts. The teacher asks children to inspect generations and says none hoping in the Lord was confounded, asking who keeping commandments was forsaken or calling was despised. God is called compassionate and merciful, forgiving sins in tribulation and protecting true seekers. These are attributed exhortations and assertions, not separately verified universal history or promised clinical recovery.

Woes address double hearts, wicked lips, evil hands, two-way sinners, fainthearted unbelief and lost patience on crooked paths; a question anticipates examination. Those fearing and loving God keep words and ways, seek pleasure and law, prepare hearts, sanctify souls and keep patience until visitation. Their closing saying is conditional: if they do not do penance they shall fall into the Lord's hands rather than men's. It is not rewritten as choosing surrender by doing penance. Mercy is according to God's greatness, without a new doctrine equating infinite quantities or certifying all suffering essential to growth.

The story inside

Opening: The entering servant is urged to prepare, listen and endure humiliation. Development: Commands to trust and historical rhetorical questions precede woes against duplicity. Conclusion: Closing penance wording retains its negative condition.

Lessons worth keeping

1
The entering servant is urged to prepare, listen and endure humiliation.
2
Commands to trust and historical rhetorical questions precede woes against duplicity.
3
Closing penance wording retains its negative condition.

Test your recall

Which images and requests does the speaker use, and what does the chapter leave unresolved?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 73397–73398
2:1. Son, when thou comest to the service of God, stand in justice and in fear, and prepare thy soul for temptation.
Lines 73409–73410
2:5. For gold and silver are tried in the fire, but acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation.
Lines 73461–73464
2:22. Saying: If we do not penance, we shall fall into the hands of the Lord, and not into the hands of men. 2:23. For according to his greatness, so also is his mercy with him.