Who can guard the mouth when the heart keeps supplying it with pride, resentment, and desire? Sirach 23 begins by calling upon the Father. The prayer takes the preceding chapter’s watch over the lips inward, asking for the thoughts themselves to be governed. Later, Holy Wednesday places this discipline beside Mary’s costly love and Judas’s pious-sounding objection. The words reveal what the heart has learned to want.
Father and Governor of My Life (Sirach 23:1-6)
1 O Lord, Father and Governor of my life, leave me not to their counsels, and let me not fall by them. 2 Who will set scourges over my thoughts, and the discipline of wisdom over mine heart? that they spare me not for mine ignorances, and it pass not by my sins: 3 lest mine ignorances increase, and my sins abound to my destruction, and I fall before mine adversaries, and mine enemy rejoice over me, whose hope is far from thy mercy. 4 O Lord, Father and God of my life, give me not a proud look. 5 Turn away concupiscence from me. 6 Let not the greediness of the belly nor lust of the flesh take hold of me; and give me not over into an impudent mind.
The address is personal and dependent: the Lord is Father, Governor, and God of the speaker’s life. Verse 4 repeats the filial address with different wording. These are striking Old Testament prayers in which a person asks for the Father’s care over the whole self. We should receive their intimacy without claiming that the full revelation of Christian adoption has already been stated. Christ teaches the baptized to pray to the Father in a depth made possible through the Son and the Holy Spirit.
The request about not falling by their counsels continues the concern with the mouth and lips at the close of Sirach 22. But the remedy soon reaches thoughts, ignorance, pride, appetite, and an impudent mind. A guarded mouth cannot be maintained indefinitely by technique while its inward suppliers remain untouched. The prayer’s resonance with the Lord’s Prayer is natural: the speaker needs deliverance from temptation, not merely a more successful appearance of self-control.
The scourges are severe language for correction of thought, never an instruction to injure the body or seek abusive treatment. “Concupiscence” means disordered desire, an appetite that has begun to govern the person. Food, the body, and marital love remain God’s good gifts. The danger is their capture by greed or lust. God’s grace does not despise embodied life; it restores freedom within it.
The Holy Name and the Habit of Truth (Sirach 23:7-15)
7 Hear, O ye children, the discipline of the mouth: he that keepeth it shall never be taken in his lips. 8 The sinner shall be left in his foolishness: both the evil speaker and the proud shall fall thereby. 9 Accustom not thy mouth to swearing; neither use thyself to the naming of the Holy One. 10 For as a servant that is continually beaten shall not be without a blue mark: so he that sweareth and nameth God continually shall not be faultless. 11 A man that useth much swearing shall be filled with iniquity, and the plague shall never depart from his house: if he shall offend, his sin shall be upon him: and if he acknowledge not his sin, he maketh a double offence: and if he swear in vain, he shall not be innocent, but his house shall be full of calamities. 12 There is a word that is clothed about with death: God grant that it be not found in the heritage of Jacob; for all such things shall be far from the godly, and they shall not wallow in their sins. 13 Use not thy mouth to intemperate swearing, for therein is the word of sin. 14 Remember thy father and thy mother, when thou sittest among great men. Be not forgetful before them, and so thou by thy custom become a fool, and wish that thou hadst not been born, and curse the day of thy nativity. 15 The man that is accustomed to opprobrious words will never be reformed all the days of his life.
The repeated word is habit: accustoming the mouth to oaths or insults trains a settled way of speaking. The Holy One becomes a device for making another person believe us, fear us, or yield to us. Verse 10’s beaten servant is a comparison drawn from a harsh social world, not permission to beat a servant or child. Its marks illustrate how repeated acts leave a recognizable injury upon the person.
Matthew 5:27-48 includes Christ’s teaching about oaths in Matthew 5:33-37. He calls for speech simple enough that truth does not require a religious guarantee. God is not security placed behind a doubtful claim. A Christian should become trustworthy in the ordinary yes and no. Sirach’s severe language about a household filled with calamity describes the ruin habitual false and irreverent speech can unleash; it is not a method for diagnosing every illness or misfortune in a family.
Verse 14 connects the mouth to memory of father and mother amid powerful company. Shame can tempt someone to discard the manners, loyalties, or truth that should steady speech. The resulting self-curse reveals the misery of a person whose own words have become unbearable. Verse 15 describes the grip of a settled habit, not an announcement that God’s grace cannot reform a living person. The whole chapter began by asking the Father to prevent just such an end.
The Church’s Voice in Worship ⛪
At the Sixth Hour of Wednesday of Holy Pascha, Sirach 23:7-14 is a Coptic Reader-confirmed reading, together with Exodus 14:13-15:1 and John 12:1-8.1 Exodus moves through deliverance at the sea to the beginning of thanksgiving. In John’s Gospel, Mary anoints the Lord, while Judas objects in the language of concern for the poor. John identifies his theft as the real issue. The contrast exposes the difference between a generous deed and an apparently generous sentence used to conceal desire. See John 12:1-11.
Sirach’s warning about wishing never to have been born also has a sober Gospel echo in Matthew 26:24, where Christ speaks of the betrayer. That verse belongs to the Mystical Supper narrative, considered in Matthew 26:17-30, rather than to this hour’s appointed Gospel. The echo can awaken repentance without claiming that Sirach directly predicts Judas or that we know why the reading was selected. Undisciplined desire can make speech an instrument of concealment, while Mary’s love becomes an offering.
These words are no permission to wish oneself or another person dead. Anyone burdened by such thoughts needs immediate compassionate support, trusted pastoral help, and appropriate urgent professional care. The call is to return to the Father, not to pronounce a final sentence upon oneself. Christian repentance brings a sinner into mercy; despair tells the sinner there is nowhere left to go.
Gems from the Fathers 💎
St. John Chrysostom warns against using holy things to pressure another person into an oath. “For think you that the church was made for this purpose, that we might swear? Yea, for this it was made, that we might pray!”2 This is a thematic witness on oaths, not a direct exposition of Sirach 23. His protest reaches beyond careless vocabulary. The place of mercy must not become an instrument of coercion, and the Gospel that forbids rash swearing must not be turned into a prop for it.
The Secret Life Beneath the Sun (Sirach 23:16-21)
16 Two sorts of men multiply sin, and the third will bring wrath: a hot mind is as a burning fire, it will never be quenched till it be consumed: a fornicator in the body of his flesh will never cease till he hath kindled a fire. 17 All bread is sweet to a whoremonger, he will not leave off till he die. 18 A man that breaketh wedlock, saying thus in his heart, Who seeth me? I am compassed about with darkness, the walls cover me, and no body seeth me; what need I to fear? the most High will not remember my sins: 19 such a man only feareth the eyes of men, and knoweth not that the eyes of the Lord are ten thousand times brighter than the sun, beholding all the ways of men, and considering the most secret parts. 20 He knew all things ere ever they were created; so also after they were perfected he looked upon them all. 21 This man shall be punished in the streets of the city, and where he suspecteth not he shall be taken.
The burning appetite seeks fuel while imagining that satisfaction will finally put the fire out. The adulterer then constructs a world small enough for his desired secrecy: walls, darkness, and the absence of witnesses. His mistake is not merely a poor calculation about being discovered. He has reduced moral reality to what other people can see and made their ignorance his permission.
The eyes of the Lord brighter than the sun overturn that imagined refuge. Hebrews 4:13 gives a close canonical parallel: created things are open before God. His sight is a warning to the person planning harm, but it is also consolation to the spouse, child, or other person whose suffering has been denied. Hidden injury does not become unreal because its author controls the public account.
The threatened public exposure should lead us toward confession, accountability, and protection before further harm occurs. It is not an instruction to stage humiliating spectacles. A hidden life can be brought into healing light through truthful pastoral care and appropriate authorities where abuse is involved. The Lord sees in order to judge truly; we must not claim His omniscience while turning suspicion into accusation.
Betrayal, Children, and the Sweetness of the Commandment (Sirach 23:22-27)
22 Thus shall it go also with the wife that leaveth her husband, and bringeth in an heir by another. 23 For first, she hath disobeyed the law of the most High; and secondly, she hath trespassed against her own husband; and thirdly, she hath played the whore in adultery, and brought children by another man. 24 She shall be brought out into the congregation, and inquisition shall be made of her children. 25 Her children shall not take root, and her branches shall bring forth no fruit. 26 She shall leave her memory to be cursed, and her reproach shall not be blotted out. 27 And they that remain shall know that there is nothing better than the fear of the Lord, and that there is nothing sweeter than to take heed unto the commandments of the Lord.
The chapter’s address turns to a wife who betrays her marriage and conceals a child’s parentage. Ben Sira counts offenses against God, spouse, and household because sexual betrayal does not remain a private appetite. It can disorient trust, inheritance, family memory, and children’s security. The same moral seriousness already applied to the adulterous man must remain in force here; a woman cannot be made the lone bearer of a community’s sexual shame.
Verses 24-26 describe consequences in language that can be terribly misused. A child conceived amid adultery is innocent of the parents’ choices, fully human, loved by God, and to be received without contempt. The Church must never treat such children as cursed, bar them from care, or make them public evidence in a spectacle of humiliation. The betrayed spouse also deserves protection and truthful support. Neither forgiveness nor concern for appearances requires unsafe cohabitation or concealment of abuse.
The Gospel scene in John 7:53-8:11 keeps judgment and mercy before us together. Christ refuses the crowd’s use of an exposed sinner and calls her away from sin. Confession likewise seeks a truthful return, with justice for those harmed and no enjoyment of another’s disgrace. The chapter’s final sweetness is earned by all that preceded it: the commandment protects the loves that appetite promises to enrich but can destroy. Grace restores the possibility of faithfulness, whose peace is deeper than secrecy’s brief relief.
Spiritual Fruit 🍇
Begin the day as a child before the Father. Pray Sirach 23:1-4 slowly before the first demanding conversation. Name one thought or desire that has repeatedly supplied harmful words. Ask for correction that heals and for the strength to accept it. If this language stirs self-punishment, seek guidance rather than turning the prayer against your body. The Father is being asked to preserve a life, not to make it hateful to itself. Carry one sentence of the prayer into the day and return to it when pride or haste begins to decide what you will say.
Make one ordinary answer trustworthy. Notice where you habitually intensify a claim with sacred language, exaggerated certainty, or a demand that another person swear. Give a simple, accurate answer instead, including an admission when you do not know. Correct one exaggeration promptly. Reverence for God’s name matures in truthfulness that no longer needs to borrow His authority to make itself persuasive.
Choose Mary’s generosity over Judas’s disguise. Before criticizing another person’s offering, examine whether the criticism conceals envy, possessiveness, or a private appetite. Make one act of mercy that costs something real and seeks no display. Holy Wednesday’s appointed Gospel brings love and its imitation close together. Ask Christ to make your concern for others truthful in both the deed and the words that describe it.
Bring secrecy into healing light. If a concealed habit or betrayal is growing, speak to a trustworthy priest and obtain appropriate help before more damage is done. Where another person is at risk, protection and proper reporting take priority over reputation. Refuse contempt for children, betrayed spouses, or exposed sinners. God’s seeing can be mercy because it leaves the lie nowhere to hide and the wounded nowhere beyond His care. Let that light lead toward repentance and safety, not public shame or a verdict of despair.
Teaching Notes
Allow about 65 minutes: 5 for orientation, 10 for the opening prayer, 20 for speech and Holy Wednesday, 10 for secrecy, 10 for the final hard verses, and 10 for application and prayer.
Father and Governor of My Life (Sirach 23:1-6)
- Ask: Why does a prayer for the mouth reach into thought and appetite?
- Watch for: Literal self-punishment or the suggestion that bodily desire is intrinsically evil.
- Say slowly: “Watchfulness begins as a child’s prayer.”
The Holy Name and the Habit of Truth (Sirach 23:7-15)
- Ask: What distinguishes Mary’s costly love from Judas’s apparently generous speech?
- Emphasize: The appointed Sirach range is 23:7-14, not the whole 7-15 section. John 12:1-8 is the hour’s Gospel; Matthew 26:24 is a separate echo.
- Watch for: Fatalism about verse 15, judgments about household illness, or self-destructive readings of verse 14.
- Say slowly: “Christian repentance gives the sinner somewhere to go.”
The Secret Life Beneath the Sun (Sirach 23:16-21)
- Ask: How does fear of discovery differ from the fear of God?
- Watch for: Voyeuristic detail or presenting public exposure as the normal aim of confession.
Betrayal, Children, and the Sweetness of the Commandment (Sirach 23:22-27)
- Ask: Whose safety and dignity must be protected when betrayal becomes known?
- Watch for: Female-only blame, contempt for children, forced unsafe reconciliation, or concealment of abuse.
- Say slowly: “The commandment protects the loves appetite can destroy.”
Sources
Primary sources
- Embedded Scripture is from Brenton’s English Septuagint (LXX).
- The same package retains Sirach 23:7-14 at the Sixth Hour of Great Thursday as a historical printed witness only, from the St. Mary Ottawa Holy Pascha book, Lent 1734 A.M., 2018 A.D. That witness is distinct from the current confirmed Wednesday appointment.
- Other biblical parallels: Matthew 5:33-37; Matthew 26:24; Hebrews 4:13; John 7:53-8:11.
- St. John Chrysostom, Homily 15 on the Statues, §14, a thematic witness on coercive oaths.
Secondary academic sources
None used.
Coptic Orthodox and pastoral sources
The Coptic worship sources above supply the appointments and their differing authority. No separate modern commentary is used.
Web pages and non-academic sources
New Advent supplies the primary-text mirror cited below.
Footnotes
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Coptic Reader, Wednesday of Holy Pascha, Sixth Hour, as preserved with Coptic Reader-confirmed provenance in
@andraws/lectionary-data
1.3.3: Sirach 23:7-14, Exodus 14:13-15:1, John 12:1-8. ↩ -
St. John Chrysostom, Homily 15 on the Statues, §14, NPNF, First Series, vol. 9, primary text. ↩