Chapter XIX · Location 19 of 51
Chapter 19 · Open to readFrom Ecclesiasticus · Douay–Rheims / Challoner (1749–1752)
What does Ecclesiasticus Chapter 19 say, and which statements belong to its speaker?
Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary
Small-things and intemperance warnings accompany repentance and speech cautions. Reproof addresses possible innocence and slips of tongue without assuming universal innocence. Fear and wisdom comparisons preserve exact-word truth and restrained judgment.
Chapter breakdown
Ecclesiasticus 19 warns that a drunken worker will not be rich and disdain for small things brings gradual fall. Wine and women make wise and prudent people fall; harlot-company brings wickedness, worms, rottenness and removal as an example. Hasty belief signals a light heart and diminution, sin against one's soul contempt. Iniquity-joy earns censure, hatred of correction less life; hatred of babbling extinguishes evil. Self-wronging leads repentance, delight in wickedness condemnation.
Do not repeat a harsh wicked word, disclose one's mind to friend or foe or reveal one's sin: the listener watches, appears to defend yet hates, remaining so. Let a word against a neighbor die within without fear of bursting. A fool hearing words resembles a laboring woman or an arrow lodged in a man's thigh, without an invented warrior scene. Reprove a friend who may not understand or may deny action, or to prevent repetition; a neighbor may never have spoken the alleged words. Admonish amid frequent fault and do not believe every word. Some slips of tongue are not from heart; everyone has offended in speech, so admonish before threatening and make room for the Most High's fear, identified with wisdom and law's disposition. The text does not establish a private-before-public procedural rule or make every slip innocent.
Wicked learning and sinful schemes are not wisdom or prudence; subtle wickedness is detestable, while one is foolish and wisdomless. Less understanding with God-fear is better than abundant understanding that transgresses law. Unjust subtlety contrasts one speaking exact truth. Wicked self-humiliation hides deceit; excessive lowliness and downcast face may pretend not to see the unknown. Someone restrained only by powerlessness sins when opportunity comes. Look, countenance, attire, laughter and gait are said to show character, without specifying modest dress, restrained laughter or dignified steps. Injury-driven angry rebuke can lie, some judgment is not approved as good, and silence can be wise. These are attributed comparisons, not a clinical account of inevitable moral decay or guarantees of protected inheritance.
The story inside
Opening: Small-things and intemperance warnings accompany repentance and speech cautions. Development: Reproof addresses possible innocence and slips of tongue without assuming universal innocence. Conclusion: Fear and wisdom comparisons preserve exact-word truth and restrained judgment.
Lessons worth keeping
- 1Small-things and intemperance warnings accompany repentance and speech cautions.
- 2Reproof addresses possible innocence and slips of tongue without assuming universal innocence.
- 3Fear and wisdom comparisons preserve exact-word truth and restrained judgment.
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 75046–75047
19:1. A workman that is a drunkard shall not be rich: and he that contemneth small things, shall fall by little and little.
Lines 75076–75077
19:10. Hast thou heard a word against thy neighbour? let it die within thee, trusting that it will not burst thee.
Lines 75082–75083
19:12. As an arrow that sticketh in a man’s thigh: so is a word in the heart of a fool.
Lines 75093–75094
19:16. And believe not every word. There is one, that slippeth with the tongue, but not from his heart.
Lines 75109–75111
19:21. Better is a man that hath less wisdom, and wanteth understanding, with the fear of God, than he that aboundeth in understanding, and transgresseth the law of the most High.
Lines 75129–75130
19:27. The attire of the body, and the laughter of the teeth, and the gait of the man, shew what he is.
