Sirach 38:32-34

New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition

³² Without them no city can be inhabited,
    and wherever they live, they will not go hungry.^[a]
Yet they are not sought out for the council of the people,^[b]
33     nor do they attain eminence in the public assembly.
They do not sit in the judge’s seat,
    nor do they understand the decisions of the courts;
they cannot expound discipline or judgement,
    and they are not found among the rulers.^[c]
34 But they maintain the fabric of the world,
    and their concern is for^[d] the exercise of their trade.

How different the one who devotes himself
    to the study of the law of the Most High!