NOTES for Sir 15:17

Everything that concerns life and death is in our hands. This declaration of absolute human freedom in choice is unexpected for everyone who thinks that freedom is an illusion, that everything is relative, and that in reality good and evil are equivalent. The text surrounding this astonishing verse can overturn not only habitual ideas about the role played for us by the choice we make and about which we very often do not trouble ourselves to give an account; common ideas about what life is and what death is are also subject to reconsideration.

God offers us fire or water, and the choice depends only on us. There is no one on whom responsibility for oneself can be placed. Before God each person stands personally. Nothing freely chosen by us can serve as a stone that we throw at others or at God.

No good intentions, justifications, references to having turned aside "for God's sake" or "for the neighbor's sake," nothing can serve as justification when our heart condemns us. Before us are life or death. The choice is ours alone.