Ben Sira - Chapter 23

23: 1-4, 6-27  (translated by Edgar Goodspeed)
O Lord, Father and Master of my life, do not abandon me to their designs; do not let me fall because of them.  Who will set scourges over my mind, and the discipline of wisdom over my heart, so that they may not spare me for my errors of ignorance, and it may not pass over my sins, so that my acts of ignorance may not become numerous, and my sins multiply, and I fall before my adversaries, and my enemy rejoice over me?  O Lord, Father and God of my life, do not give me roving eyes, and avert evil desire from me; let not sensual appetite and intercourse master me, and do not give me up to a shameless mind.
Listen my children, to the discipline of the mouth, for those who observe it will not be taken captive.  It is through the lips that the sinner is caught, and the abusive and the proud are tripped up by them.  Do not accustom your mouth to an oath, and do not form the habit of uttering/swearing the name of the Holy One; for just as a servant who is constantly being questioned does not lack the marks of a blow, so the one who constantly swears and utters the Name cannot be absolved from sin.  A man who swears a great deal will be filled with iniquity, and the scourge will never leave his house.  If he offends, his sin rests upon him, and if he disregards it, he sins doubly; and if he has sworn needlessly, he is not justified, for his house will be filled with misery.
There is a way of speaking that may be compared with death; it must not be found in the inheritance of Jacob.  For all this will be far from the godly, and they will not wallow in sin.  Do not accustom your mouth to foul rudeness/coarse talk, for that is sinful speech.  Remember your father and mother, when you sit in council with the great, or you may forget yourself in their presence, and seem like a fool through the habit you have formed, so that you will wish you had never been born, and curse the day of your birth.  A man who forms the habit of abusive speech will never be educated as long as he lives.  There are two kinds of men that multiply sins, and a third that incurs wrath: a spirit hot as a burning fire; it cannot be quenched until it is consumed; one who is a fornicator in his physicial body; he will not stop until the fire burns him up; to the fornicator all bread is sweet; he will not tire until he dies; a man who goes astray from his own bed, and says to himself, "Who can see me?  Darkness is around me, and the walls hide me; so no one can see me; what risk do I run?  The Most High will not remember my sins."  The eyes of men are his only fear, and he does not know that the eyes of the Lord survey all the ways of men, and observe the secret places.  All things were known to him before they were created, so was it also after they were completed.  Such a man will be punished in the streets of the city, and caught where he least suspects it.  It is so also with a wife who leaves her husband, and provides an heir by a stranger.  For, first, she disobeys the law of the Most high, and second, she wrongs her husband, and third, she commits adultery through her fornication, and provides children by a stranger.  She will be brought before the assembly, and her sin will be visited upon her children.  Her children will not take root, and her branches will not bear fruit.  She will leave her memory for a curse, and her reproach will not be blotted out, and those who are left behind / dwell on earth will know that there is nothing better than the fear of the Lord, and nothing more pleasant than observing the Lord's commandments.