²¹ Fathers, do not provoke your children, or they may lose heart.

Parental Advice

⁴ And, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.^(A)

⁵ And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as children—

⁷ Endure trials for the sake of discipline. God is treating you as children, for what child is there whom a parent does not discipline?^{(C) 8} If you do not have that discipline in which all children share, then you are illegitimate and not his children.^{(D) 9} Moreover, we had human parents to discipline us, and we respected them. Should we not be even more willing to be subject to the Father of spirits and live? ¹⁰ For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share his holiness.^{(E) 11} Now, discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.^(F)

¹¹ As you know, we dealt with each one of you like a father with his children,