God is wise: He has compassion on those who accept his discipline, who are eager for his precepts. Ben Sira 18:14

The master Ben Sira taught in his sapiential book that only God is eternal and that nothing is hidden from his powerful wisdom. And this is why the wise Lord understands that all human beings are imperfect, although he left in all of them a spark that brings them closer to him, the spirit. All human beings, because of this similarity, are capable of doing good ("Do to no one what you yourself hate" Tobit 4:15), and of separating right from wrong in their hearts.
And facing this freedom of man is God as the supreme judge of all things:
"He said to them, ´Refrain from all wrongdoing, ´
and he gave them a commandment concerning duties toward one's neighbor.
Their ways are always known to him;
they cannot be hidden from his sight" Ben Sira 17:14-15.
And this sovereignty of God in practice also transforms into eternal mercy (compassion, kindness, gentleness) towards his creatures, because God knows perfectly how precarious the life of man is:
"The number of a man's days is great if he reaches a hundred years.
Like a drop of water from the sea and a grain of sand
so are a few years in the day of eternity" Ben Sira 18:9-10.
This is why Ben Sira invited reflection and a spiritual search for God's mercy, because mercy heals, edifies, soothes, and radiates happiness. Mercy is one of the greatest spiritual goods that the creator of all things can give to man. Like when King Hezekiah, after defeating the ruler of the assyrian empire, the tyrant Sennacherib, fell seriously ill and begged God for more years of life and through the words of the prophet Isaiah he obtained what he needed so much from God.
This is why Ben Sira summarized how God's mercy obeys, to a certain extent, to a "law of similarity":
"He has compassion on those who accept his discipline,
who are eager for his precepts" Ben Sira 18:14.
Ben Sira invited men to seek the perfections of God above all things.

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