Sirach 29:21-28

Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

²¹ The essentials for life are water and bread
    and clothing and a house to cover one’s nakedness.
²² Better is the life of a poor man under the shelter of his roof
    than sumptuous food in another man’s house.
²³ Be content with little or much.^[a]
24 It is a miserable life to go from house to house,
    and where you are a stranger you may not open your mouth;
²⁵ you will play the host and provide drink without being thanked,
    and besides this you will hear bitter words:
²⁶ “Come here, stranger, prepare the table,
    and if you have anything at hand, let me have it to eat.”
²⁷ “Give place, stranger, to an honored person;
    my brother has come to stay with me; I need my house.”
²⁸ These things are hard to bear for a man who has feeling:
    scolding about lodging^[b] and the reproach of the moneylender.