^21 (A)Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.

Security in Wisdom

⁴ And ^(A)you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but ^(B)bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.

⁵ And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons:

^7 (C)If^[b] you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what ^(D)son is there whom a father does not chasten? ⁸ But if you are without chastening, ^(E)of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. ⁹ Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to ^(F)the Father of spirits and live? ¹⁰ For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, ^(G)that we may be partakers of His holiness. ¹¹ Now no ^[c]chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields ^(H)the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

¹¹ as you know how we exhorted, and comforted, and ^[a]charged every one of you, as a father does his own children,