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If you begin to serve the Lord God, prepare your soul for trials, such is His greatness, such is His mercy.
Sir.2:1 My son! If you begin to serve the Lord God, then prepare your soul for temptation:
Sir.2:2 Guide your heart and be strong, and do not be embarrassed during your visit;
Sir.2:3 Cling to Him and do not retreat, so that you may be magnified in the end.
Sir.2:4 Whatever befalls you, accept it willingly, and be patient in the vicissitudes of your humiliation,
Sir.2:5 For gold is tested in fire, but people pleasing to God are tested in the crucible of humiliation.
1–5. He who decides to follow the path of virtue should not be embarrassed by the obstacles that he will encounter on this path, knowing that these obstacles, by God’s permission, serve to test his faith and strengthen his virtue.
Sir.2:6 Believe in Him, and He will protect you; direct your ways and trust in Him.
Sir.2:7 Those who fear the Lord! expect His mercy and do not turn away from Him, lest you fall.
Sir.2:8 Those who fear the Lord! Believe in Him, and your reward will not perish.
Sir.2:9 Those who fear the Lord! hope for good things, for eternal joy and mercy.
Sir.2:10 Look at the ancient generations and see: who believed the Lord - and was ashamed? or who was in fear of Him and was abandoned? or who cried out to Him and He despised him?
Sir.2:11 For the Lord is compassionate and merciful, and forgives sins and saves in times of trouble.
Sir.2:12 Woe to timid hearts and weak hands, and to the sinner who walks in two paths!
Sir.2:13 Woe to the weakened heart! for it does not believe, and for this reason it will not be protected.
12–13 . See note. to 28 art. Chapter I
Sir.2:14 Woe to you who have lost patience! what will you do when the Lord visits?
Sir.2:15 Those who fear the Lord will not distrust His words, and those who love Him will preserve His ways.
15. His ways, i.e. laws of the Lord.
Sir.2:16 Those who fear the Lord will seek His favor, and those who love Him will be satisfied with the law.
16. They will be saturated with the law, i.e. feed their soul with the fulfillment of the good and perfect will of God, expressed in the law of God.
Sir.2:17 Those who fear the Lord will prepare their hearts and humble their souls before Him, saying:
Sir.2:18 Let us fall into the hands of the Lord, and not into the hands of men; for as is His greatness, such is His mercy.
18. Falling into the hands of God is not the same as falling into the hands of men. If the Lord visits a person with some kind of test, then He will have mercy on His faithful one, for the mercy of the Lord is as great as His greatness is immense.