1 There are three things my soul delights in, and which are delightful to God and to all people: concord between brothers, friendship between neighbours, and a wife and husband who live happily together.
2 There are three sorts of people my soul hates, and whose existence I consider an outrage: the poor swollen with pride, the rich who is a liar and an adulterous old man who has no sense.
3 If you have gathered nothing in your youth, how can you discover anything in your old age?
4 How fine a thing: sound judgement with grey hairs, and for greybeards to know how to advise!
5 How fine a thing: wisdom in the aged, and considered advice coming from people of distinction!
6 The crown of the aged is ripe experience, their glory, the fear of the Lord.
7 There are nine things I can think of which strike me as happy, and a tenth which is now on my tongue: the man who can be proud of his children, he who lives to see the downfall of his enemies;
8 happy is he who keeps house with a sensible wife; he who does not toil with ox and donkey; he who has never sinned with his tongue; he who does not serve a man less worthy than himself;
9 happy is he who has acquired good sense and can find attentive ears for what he has to say;
10 how great is he who has acquired wisdom; but unsurpassed is one who fears the Lord.
11 The fear of the Lord surpasses everything; what can compare with someone who has mastered that?
13 Any wound rather than a wound of the heart! Any spite rather than the spite of woman!
14 Any evil rather than an evil caused by an enemy! Any vengeance rather than the vengeance of a foe!
15 There is no poison worse than the poison of a snake, there is no fury worse than the fury of an enemy.
16 I would sooner keep house with a lion or a dragon than keep house with a spiteful wife.
17 A woman's spite changes her appearance and makes her face as grim as a bear's.
18 When her husband goes out to dinner with his neighbours, he cannot help heaving bitter sighs.
19 No spite can approach the spite of a woman, may a sinner's lot be hers!
20 Like the climbing of a sandhill for elderly feet, such is a garrulous wife for a quiet husband.
21 Do not be taken in by a woman's beauty, never lose your head over a woman.
22 Bad temper, insolence and shame hold sway where the wife supports the husband.
23 Low spirits, gloomy face, stricken heart: such is a spiteful wife. Slack hands and sagging knees: such is the wife who does not make her husband happy.
24 Sin began with a woman, and thanks to her we must all die.
25 Do not let water find a leak, nor a spiteful woman give free rein to her tongue.
26 If she will not do as you tell her, get rid of her.
Reading 1, Isaiah 55:10-11: 10 For, as the rain and the snow come down from the sky and do ... Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 34:4-5, 6-7, 16-17, 18-19: 4 I seek Yahweh and he answers me, ... Gospel, Matthew 6:7-15: 7 'In your prayers do not babble as the gentiles do, for they ... continue reading
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The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) is a Catholic translation of the Bible published in 1985. The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) has become the most widely used Roman Catholic Bible outside of the United States. It has the imprimatur of Cardinal George Basil Hume.
Like its predecessor, the Jerusalem Bible, the New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) version is translated "directly from the Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic." The 1973 French translation, the Bible de Jerusalem, is followed only "where the text admits to more than one interpretation." Introductions and notes, with some modifications, are taken from the Bible de Jerusalem.
Source: The Very Reverend Dom (Joseph) Henry Wansbrough, OSB, MA (Oxon), STL (Fribourg), LSS (Rome), a monk of Ampleforth Abbey and a biblical scholar. He was General Editor of the New Jerusalem Bible. "New Jerusalem Bible, Regular Edition", pg. v.
