Give not your soul to harlots, That you lose not your inheritance.
Blessed is the man that has not slipped with his mouth, And is not pricked with sorrow for sins.
Howbeit to those who repent he granteth a return; And he comforteth those who are losing patience.
Return to the Lord, and forsake sins: Make your prayer before his face, and lessen the offence.
Turn again to the Most High, and turn away from iniquity; And greatly hate the abominable thing.
How great is the mercy of the Lord, And his forgiveness to those who turn to him!
The mercy of a man is upon his neighbor; But the mercy of the Lord is upon all flesh; Reproving, and chastening, and teaching, And bringing again, as a shepherd does his flock.
He has mercy on those who accept chastening, And that diligently seek after his judgements.
Before judgement examine yourself; And in the hour of visitation you will find forgiveness.
Humble yourself before you be sick; And in the time of sins show repentance.
Reprove a friend; it may be he did it not: And if he did something, that he may do it no more.
How good is it to reprove, rather than to be angry; And he that makes confession will be kept back from hurt.
My son, have you sinned? add no more thereto; And make supplication for your former sins.
One that hates reproof is in the path of the sinner; And he that fears the Lord will turn again in his heart.
If you have drawn a sword against a friend, despair not; For there may be a returning.
Who will set scourges over my thought, And a discipline of wisdom over my heart? That they spare me not for my ignorances, And my heart pass not by their sins:
That my ignorances be not multiplied, And my sins abound not; And I will fall before my adversaries, And my enemy rejoice over me.
For as a servant that is continually scourged will not lack a bruise, So he also that swears and names God continually will not be cleansed from sin.
A man that is accustomed to words of reproach Will not be corrected all the days of his life.
A man that goes astray from his own bed, Saying in his heart, Who sees me? Darkness is round about me, and the walls hide me, And no man sees me; of whom am I afraid? The Most High will not remember my sins;
He that takes vengeance will find vengeance from the Lord; And he will surely make firm his sins.
Forgive your neighbor the hurt that he has done you; And then your sins will be pardoned when you pray.
Man cherisheth anger against man; And does he seek healing from the Lord?
Upon a man like himself he has no mercy; And does he make supplication for his own sins?
He being himself flesh nourishes wrath: Who will make atonement for his sins?
Remember your last end, and cease from enmity: Remember corruption and death, and abide in the commandments.
Abstain from strife, and you will diminish your sins: For a passionate man will kindle strife;
A sinful man shunneth reproof, And will find a judgement according to his will.
Do nothing without counsel; And when you have once done, repent not.
Even so a man fasting for his sins, And going again, and doing the same; Who will listen to his prayer? And what profit has he in his humiliation?
To depart from wickedness is a thing pleasing to the Lord; And to depart from unrighteousness is an atoning sacrifice.
As a token of the changing of the heart,
Put away wrong doing, and order your hands aright, And cleanse your heart from all manner of sin.
He will apply his heart to resort early to the Lord that made him, And will make supplication before the Most High, And will open his mouth in prayer, And will make supplication for his sins.
Enoch pleased the Lord, and was translated, Being an example of repentance to all generations.
For all this the people repented not, And they departed not from their sins, Till they were carried away as a plunder from their land, And were scattered through all the earth; And the people was left very few in number, And a ruler was left in the house of David.
Except David and Hezekiah and Josiah, All committed trespass: For they forsook the law of the Most High; The kings of Judah failed.
And they wept, and fasted, and prayed before the Lord;
and they sent it to Jerusalem to Joakim the high priest, the son of Helkias, the son of Salom, and to the priests, and to all the people which were found with him at Jerusalem,
at the same time when he took the vessels of the house of the Lord, that had been carried out of the temple, to return them into the land of Judah, the tenth day of the month Sivan, namely, silver vessels, which Sedekias the son of Josias king of Judah had made,
Pray for us also to the Lord our God, for we have sinned against the Lord our God; and to this day the wrath of the Lord and his indignation is not turned from us.
And you⌃ shall say, To the Lord our God belongs righteousness, but to us confusion of face, as at this day, to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
and to our kings, and to our princes, and to our priests, and to our prophets, and to our fathers:
for that we have sinned before the Lord,
and disobeyed him, and have not hearkened to the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in the commandments of the Lord that he has set before us:
since the day that the Lord brought our fathers out of the land of Egypt, to this present day, we have been disobedient to the Lord our God, and we have dealt unadvisedly in not hearkening to his voice.
Nevertheless we didn’t listen to the voice of the Lord our God, according to all the words of the prophets, whom he sent to us:
but we walked every man in the imagination of his own wicked heart, to serve strange gods, and to do that which is evil in the sight of the Lord our God.
Thus were they cast down, and not exalted, because we sinned against the Lord our God, in not hearkening to his voice.
To the Lord our God belongs righteousness: but to us and to our fathers confusion of face, as at this day.
Yet have we not entreated the favor of the Lord, in turning every one from the thoughts of his wicked heart.
Yet we have not hearkened to his voice, to walk in the commandments of the Lord that he has set before us.
O Lord our God, we have sinned, we have done ungodly, we have dealt unrighteously in all your ordinances.
Let your wrath turn from us: for we are but a few left among the heathen, where you have scattered us.
Hear our prayer, O Lord, and our petition, and deliver us for your own sake, and give us favor in the sight of them which have led us away captive:
For we do not present our supplication before you, O Lord our God, for the righteousness of our fathers, and of our kings.
For I know that they will not hear me, because it is a stiff-necked people: but in the land of their captivity they shall take it to heart,
and they shall praise me in the land of their captivity, and think upon my name,
and shall return from their stiff neck, and from their wicked deeds: for they shall remember the way of their fathers, which sinned before the Lord.
Hear, O Lord, and have mercy; for you are a merciful God: yes, have mercy upon us, because we have sinned before you.
O Lord Almighty, you God of Israel, hear now the prayer of the dead Israelites, and of the children of them which were sinners before you, that didn’t listen to the voice of you their God: for the which cause these plagues clave to us.
Remember not the iniquities of our fathers: but remember your power and your name now at this time.
For for this cause you have put your fear in our hearts, to the intent that we should call upon your name: and we will praise you in our captivity, for we have called to mind all the iniquity of our fathers, that sinned before you.
Behold, we are yet this day in our captivity, where you have scattered us, for a reproach and a curse, and to be subject to penalty, according to all the iniquities of our fathers, which departed from the Lord our God.
You have forsaken the fountain of wisdom.
Turn you, O Jacob, and take hold of it: walk towards her shining in the presence of the light thereof.
You⌃ forgat the everlasting God, that brought you up; you⌃ grieved also Jerusalem, that nursed you.
and had no regard to his statutes, neither walked they in the ways of God’s commandments, nor trod in the paths of discipline in his righteousness.
For as it was your mind to go astray from God: so, return and seek him ten times more.
But say you⌃ in your hearts, O Lord, we must worship you.
For we have sinned and committed iniquity, in departing from you.
In all things have we trespassed, and not obeyed your commandments, nor kept them, neither done as you have commanded us, that it might go well with us.
And now we can’t open our mouth; shame and reproach have befallen your servants, and those who worship you.
For we, O Lord, are become less than any nation, and be kept under this day in all the world because of our sins.
Nevertheless in a contrite heart and a humble spirit let us be accepted;
So when they were put asunder one from another, he called one of them, and said to him, O you that have become old in wickedness, now are your sins come home to you which you have committed aforetime,
And they fasted that day, and put on sackcloth, and put ashes upon their heads, and tore their clothes,
and there came into their mind a good counsel, that they should pull it down, lest it should be a reproach to them, because the Gentiles had defiled it: and they pulled down the altar,
But now I remember the evils which I did at Jerusalem, and that I took all the vessels of silver and gold that were therein, and sent forth to destroy the inhabitants of Judah without a cause.
for I have repented that I gave my daughter to him, for he sought to kill me.
And they said, Deal not with us according to our wickednesses, but according to your mercy.
For indeed that those who act impiously be not let alone any long time, but straightway meet with retribution, is a sign of great beneficence.
And after him they brought the sixth. And when he was at the point to die he said, Be not vainly deceived, for we suffer these things for our own doings, as sinning against our own God: marvelous things are come to pass;
For we are suffering because of our own sins;
and if for rebuke and chastening our living Lord has been angered a little while, yet shall he again be reconciled with his own servants.
And when they had accomplished these things, and had made a common supplication, they implored the merciful Lord to be wholly reconciled with his servants.
Hereupon therefore he began in great part to cease from his arrogancy, being broken in spirit, and to come to knowledge under the scourge of God, his pains increasing every moment.
And when he himself could not abide his own smell, he said these words: It is right to be subject to God, and that one who is mortal should not be minded arrogantly.
And the vile man vowed to the sovereign Lord, who now no more would have pity upon him, saying on this wise:
that the holy city, to the which he was going in haste, to lay it even with the ground and to make it a common graveyard, he would declare free;
and the holy sanctuary, which before he had plundered, he would adorn with goodliest offerings, and would restore all the sacred vessels many times multiplied, and out of his own revenues would defray the charges that were required for the sacrifices;
and, beside all this, that he would become a Jew, and would visit every inhabited place, publishing abroad the might of God.
But when his sufferings did in no wise cease, for the judgement of God had come upon him in righteousness, having given up all hope of himself, he wrote to the Jews the letter written below, having the nature of a supplication, to this effect:
And when they had done these things, they fell prostrate and implored the Lord that they might fall no more into such evils; but that, if ever they should sin, they might be chastened by him with forbearance, and not be delivered to blaspheming and barbarous heathen.
But as he drew near, Maccabaeus and his men sprinkled earth upon their heads and girded their loins with sackcloth, in supplication to God,
that the Jews use their own proper meats and observe their own laws, even as heretofore; and none of them shall be in any way molested for the things that have been ignorantly done.
betook themselves to supplication, beseeching that the sin committed might be wholly blotted out. And the noble Judas exhorted the multitude to keep themselves from sin, forsomuch as they had seen before their eyes what things had come to pass because of the sin of those who had fallen.
(And if he did it looking to an honorable memorial of gratitude laid up for those who die in godliness, holy and godly was the thought.) Wherefore he made the atoning sacrifice for those who had died, that they might be released from their sin.
So when they had all done the same thing together, beseeching the merciful Lord with weeping and fastings and prostration for three days without ceasing, Judas exhorted them and commanded they should join him for service.
heard that Philip who had been left as chancellor in Antioch had become reckless, was confounded, made to the Jews an overture of peace, submitted himself and sware to acknowledge all their rights, came to terms with them and offered sacrifice, honored the sanctuary and the place,












