Sirach 36:23-31

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

²³ The stomach will take any food,
    yet one food is better than another.
²⁴ As the palate tastes the kinds of game,
    so an intelligent mind detects false words.^(A)
25 A perverse mind will cause grief,
    but a person with experience will pay him back.^(B)
26 A woman will accept any man as a husband,
    but one daughter is preferable to another.
²⁷ A woman’s beauty lights up a man’s face,
    and there is nothing he desires more.^(C)
28 If kindness and humility mark her speech,
    her husband is more fortunate than other men.^(D)
29 He who acquires a wife gets his best possession,^[a]
    a helper fit for him and a pillar of support.^[b](E)
30 Where there is no fence, the property will be plundered,
    and where there is no wife, a man will become a fugitive and a wanderer.^[c](F)
31 For who will trust a nimble robber
    who skips from city to city?
So who will trust a man who has no nest
    but lodges wherever nighttime finds him?^(G)