"Honor physicians for their services, for the Lord created them, and their gift for healing comes from the Most High. The Lord created medicines from the earth, and the sensible person will not despise them. By them physicians heal and take away pain, and through them healing spreads over all the earth. My child, when you are ill, do not delay, but pray to the Lord to be healed. Give up your faults and direct your hands rightly, and cleanse your heart from all evil. Offer a sweet-smelling sacrifice, and pour oil on your offering, then give the physiicians their place, for the Lord has created them. Do not let them leave you, for you need them. There may come a time when recovery lies in the hands of physicians, for they, too, pray to the Lord to grant them success in diagnosis and in healing, for the preservation of life."
- Sirach 38:1-14
