Sirach 37:10–18

¹⁰Don’t take counsel with one who looks askance at you. Hide your counsel from those who are jealous of you.↗

¹¹Don’t consult with a woman about her rival, with a coward about war, with a merchant about business, with a buyer about selling, with an envious man about thankfulness, with an unmerciful man about kindliness, with a sluggard about any kind of work, with a hireling in your house about finishing his work, or with an idle servant about much business. Pay no attention to these in any matter of counsel.↗

¹²But rather be continually with a godly man, whom you know to be a keeper of the commandments, who in his soul is as your own soul, and who will grieve with you, if you fail.↗

¹³Make the counsel of your heart stand, for there is no one more faithful to you than it.↗

¹⁴For a man’s soul is sometimes inclined to inform him better than seven watchmen who sit on high on a watch-tower.↗

¹⁵Above all this ask the Most High that he may direct your way in truth.↗

¹⁶Let reason be the beginning of every work. Let counsel go before every action.↗

¹⁷As a token of the changing of the heart,↗

¹⁸four kinds of things rise up: good and evil, life and death. That which rules over them continually is the tongue.↗