1. Septuagint, Ecclesiasticus (Siracides), 18.15, 18.19-18.22, 18.24, 18.26, 34.26, 39.7-39.12 (2nd cent. BCE - 2nd cent. BCE)
| 18.15. My son, do not mix reproach with your good deeds,nor cause grief by your words when you present a gift. 18.19. Before you speak, learn,and before you fall ill, take care of your health. 18.21. Before falling ill, humble yourself,and when you are on the point of sinning, turn back. 18.22. Let nothing hinder you from paying a vow promptly,and do not wait until death to be released from it. 18.24. Think of his wrath on the day of death,and of the moment of vengeance when he turns away his face. 18.26. From morning to evening conditions change,and all things move swiftly before the Lord. 34.26. So if a man fasts for his sins,and goes again and does the same things,who will listen to his prayer?And what has he gained by humbling himself? 39.7. He will direct his counsel and knowledge aright,and meditate on his secrets. 39.8. He will reveal instruction in his teaching,and will glory in the law of the Lords covet. 39.9. Many will praise his understanding,and it will never be blotted out;his memory will not disappear,and his name will live through all generations. 39.11. if he lives long, he will leave a name greater than a thousand,and if he goes to rest, it is enough for him. 39.12. I have yet more to say, which I have thought upon,and I am filled, like the moon at the full. |
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2. Septuagint, Wisdom of Solomon, 16.29 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
| 16.29. for the hope of an ungrateful man will melt like wintry frost,and flow away like waste water. |
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3. Philo of Alexandria, That God Is Unchangeable, 48 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 48. For, in the case of other plants and other animals, we cannot call either the good that is caused by them deserving of praise, nor the evil that they do deserving of blame; for all their motions in either direction, and, all their changes, have no design about them, but are involuntary. But the soul of man, being the only one which has received from God the power of voluntary motion, and which in this respect has been made to resemble God, and being as far as possible emancipated from the authority of that grievous and severe mistress, necessity, may rightly be visited with reproach if she does not pay due honour to the being who has emancipated her. And therefore, in such a case, she will most deservedly suffer the implacable punishment denounced against slavish and ungrateful minds. |
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4. Josephus Flavius, Jewish Antiquities, 2.56, 3.312, 20.88 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
| 2.56. who has neither minded who he was when he came to our house, so as to behave himself with modesty; nor has he been mindful of what favors he had received from thy bounty (as he must be an ungrateful man indeed, unless he, in every respect, carry himself in a manner agreeable to us;) this man, I say, laid a private design to abuse thy wife, and this at the time of a festival, observing when thou wouldst be absent. So that it now is clear that his modesty, as it appeared to be formerly, was only because of the restraint he was in out of fear of thee, but that he was not really of a good disposition. 3.312. For, he said, that when he was in the tabernacle, and was bewailing with tears that destruction which was coming upon them God put him in mind what things he had done for them, and what benefits they had received from him, and yet how ungrateful they had been to him that just now they had been induced, through the timorousness of the spies, to think that their words were truer than his own promise to them; 20.88. he also threatened him that he should be punished, as a person ungrateful to his lords; and said that the God whom he worshipped could not deliver him out of the king’s hands. |
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5. Josephus Flavius, Jewish War, 1.214 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
| 1.214. 9. Nor was he mistaken in the conjecture he made; for Herod got his army together, out of the anger he bare him for his threatening him with the accusation in a public court, and led it to Jerusalem, in order to throw Hyrcanus down from his kingdom; and this he had soon done, unless his father and brother had gone out together and broken the force of his fury, and this by exhorting him to carry his revenge no further than to threatening and affrighting, but to spare the king, under whom he had been advanced to such a degree of power; and that he ought not to be so much provoked at his being tried, as to forget to be thankful that he was acquitted; nor so long to think upon what was of a melancholy nature, as to be ungrateful for his deliverance; |
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6. New Testament, Luke, 6.35 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
| 6.35. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing back; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for he is kind toward the unthankful and evil. |
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