Read & explore together
Pride falls before mortality and divine reversal
Sirach 10:6–18 warns against anger, violence, and pride. It keeps bringing the reader back to a hard truth: human life is frail, but the Lord can bring down the proud and lift up the lowly.
Understanding the passage
Listening in context
This passage sits within wisdom teaching and speaks in short sayings. It moves from everyday conduct toward neighbours, to pride before the Lord, to the transfer of power among nations, and then to human mortality and the Lord’s overthrow of the proud.
Sirach 10:6–18Main takeaway
This passage teaches that pride turns people away from the Lord, while human mortality and the Lord’s rule expose how empty pride really is.
Look closely at the words
Open a card to explore the full explanation and its Bible references.
01Start with anger and violenceThe passage begins with direct instruction. A person is told not to be angry with a neighbour for every wrong and not to act with violence.
Explanation
The passage begins with direct instruction. A person is told not to be angry with a neighbour for every wrong and not to act with violence. That opening matters because the later warnings about pride are not abstract ideas only. Pride shows itself in how people treat others.
02Pride is hated, and power can change handsSirach says pride is hateful before both the Lord and people, and arrogance is abhorrent in judgement.
Explanation
Sirach says pride is hateful before both the Lord and people, and arrogance is abhorrent in judgement. It then points to public life: sovereignty can pass from one nation to another because of injustice, violence, and greed for money. Pride is therefore tied to real wrongdoing, not just feelings of self-importance.
03Human bodies do not support proud heartsThe questions about dirt, ashes, disease, and death press home mortality. Human bodies decay, illness exposes limits, today’s king may die tomorrow, and the dead inherit worms.
Explanation
The questions about dirt, ashes, disease, and death press home mortality. Human bodies decay, illness exposes limits, today’s king may die tomorrow, and the dead inherit worms. The point is not to describe an event, but to show how absurd pride looks in creatures whose lives are brief and fragile.
04Pride begins by departing from the LordSirach defines pride deeply. It begins when a person departs from the Lord, and the heart departs from the One who made that person.
Explanation
Sirach defines pride deeply. It begins when a person departs from the Lord, and the heart departs from the One who made that person. Pride is also called the beginning of sin. The warning is spiritual before it is social: pride breaks right relation with the Creator.
05The Lord reverses the proud and the lowlyThe final sayings show divine reversal. The Lord casts down rulers, uproots nations, and sets or plants the lowly in their place.
Explanation
The final sayings show divine reversal. The Lord casts down rulers, uproots nations, and sets or plants the lowly in their place. The closing line says pride was not created for men, nor wrathful anger for human offspring. Human pride does not fit the life God has given.
Questions to explore
Pause, look back at the verses and talk together.
01How does the opening command in verse 6 prepare you for the later warnings about pride?
Look at how Sirach connects inner anger with outward violence before speaking about pride and arrogance.
02Why does Sirach bring up decay, disease, and death when speaking about pride?
Trace the images of dirt, ashes, illness, and death to see how mortality makes pride look misplaced.
03According to this passage, where does pride really begin, and what does the Lord do in response?
Notice that pride starts in departing from the Lord, and then read the verses about the Lord bringing down rulers and raising the lowly.
Read the Bible passage
World English Bible ClassicScripture quotation · Public domain
Sirach 10:6–18
6Don’t be angry with your neighbor for every wrong. Do nothing by works of violence.
7Pride is hateful before the Lord and men. Arrogance is abhorrent in the judgment of both.
8Sovereignty is transferred from nation to nation because of injustice, violence, and greed for money.
9Why are dirt and ashes proud? Because in life, my body decays.
10A long disease mocks the physician. The king of today will die tomorrow.
11For when a man is dead, he will inherit maggots, vermin, and worms.
12It is the beginning of pride when a man departs from the Lord. His heart has departed from him who made him.
13For the beginning of pride is sin. He who keeps it will pour out abomination. For this cause the Lord brought upon them strange calamities and utterly overthrew them.
14The Lord cast down the thrones of rulers and set the lowly in their place.
15The Lord plucked up the roots of nations and planted the lowly in their place.
16The Lord overthrew the lands of nations and destroyed them to the foundations of the earth.
17He took some of them away and destroyed them, and made their memory to cease from the earth.
18Pride has not been created for men, nor wrathful anger for the offspring of women.