Read & explore together
The teacher’s anxious and restrictive view of daughters and women
This wisdom passage speaks with strong anxiety about daughters and women. A careful reading helps us notice its repeated fears, its commands, and the severe comparisons it makes without turning these sayings into a story.
Understanding the passage
Listening in context
These verses move through a father’s worries about a daughter at different stages of life. They then give commands about watching, looking and social company, before ending with short comparison sayings that speak negatively about women and shame.
Sirach 42:9–14Main takeaway
Sirach 42:9–14 presents restrictive wisdom sayings shaped by fear, public shame and harsh generalisations about women.
Look closely at the words
Open a card to explore the full explanation and its Bible references.
01A father’s sleepless fearsThe passage opens with a daughter described as a cause of sleepless care for her father. The worries change with each stage named: youth, marriage, virginity, life with a husband, and childbearing.
Explanation
The passage opens with a daughter described as a cause of sleepless care for her father. The worries change with each stage named: youth, marriage, virginity, life with a husband, and childbearing. The form is a list of feared possibilities, not a narrative event.
02Strict watch and public shameVerse 11 turns from worry to instruction: “Keep a strict watch”. The reasons given are public and social: becoming a laughingstock to enemies, a byword in the city, notorious among the people, and a source of shame in public.
Explanation
Verse 11 turns from worry to instruction: “Keep a strict watch”. The reasons given are public and social: becoming a laughingstock to enemies, a byword in the city, notorious among the people, and a source of shame in public. That is the verse’s stated concern.
03Brief commands about sight and companyVerse 12 gives two short warnings: do not gaze at every beautiful body, and do not sit in the midst of women.
Explanation
Verse 12 gives two short warnings: do not gaze at every beautiful body, and do not sit in the midst of women. These are compact sayings. The passage does not expand the setting here, but moves straight from command to proverb-like explanation.
04Severe comparison sayingsThe final lines use sharp comparisons: a moth from garments, “woman’s wickedness”, and a claim that a man’s wickedness is better than a pleasant woman who brings shame.
Explanation
The final lines use sharp comparisons: a moth from garments, “woman’s wickedness”, and a claim that a man’s wickedness is better than a pleasant woman who brings shame. These are sweeping and severe statements within the passage’s own wording.
Questions to explore
Pause, look back at the verses and talk together.
01What stages of a daughter’s life are listed as causes of anxiety?
Follow the sequence from youth to marriage and notice the different fears attached to each stage.
02What reasons are given for keeping strict watch over a daughter?
List the public outcomes named in the verse: laughter, a byword, notoriety and shame.
03How do verses 12–14 move from commands to comparisons?
Notice the two commands first, then the moth image, then the blunt comparison about shame.
Read the Bible passage
World English Bible ClassicScripture quotation · Public domain
Sirach 42:9–14
9A daughter is a secret cause of wakefulness to a father. Care for her takes away sleep— in her youth, lest she pass the flower of her age; when she is married, lest she should be hated;
10in her virginity, lest she should be defiled and be with child in her father’s house; when she has a husband, lest she should transgress; and when she is married, lest she should be barren.
11Keep a strict watch over a headstrong daughter, lest she make you a laughingstock to your enemies, a byword in the city and notorious among the people, and shame you in public.
12Don’t gaze at every beautiful body. Don’t sit in the midst of women.
13For from garments comes a moth, and from a woman comes a woman’s wickedness.
14Better is the wickedness of a man than a pleasant woman, a woman who puts you to shame and disgrace.