Avoid the Path of the Violent

Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction,
and don’t reject your mother’s teaching,(A)
for they will be a garland(B) of grace on your head
and a gold chain around your neck.(C)

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A Father’s Example

Listen, my sons, to a father’s discipline,(A)
and pay attention so that you may gain understanding,
for I am giving you good instruction.(B)
Don’t abandon my teaching.
When I was a son with my father,
tender and precious to my mother,
he taught me and said:
“Your heart must hold on to my words.
Keep my commands and live.(C)

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A Collection of Solomon’s Proverbs

10 Solomon’s proverbs:(A)

A wise son brings joy to his father,
but a foolish son, heartache to his mother.(B)

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29 The one who brings ruin on his household(A)
will inherit the wind,(B)
and a fool will be a slave
to someone whose heart is wise.

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20 A wise son brings joy to his father,
but a foolish man despises his mother.(A)

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A wise servant will rule over a disgraceful son
and share an inheritance among brothers.

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Grandchildren are the crown of the elderly,
and the pride of sons is their fathers.

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21 A man fathers a fool to his own sorrow;
the father of a fool has no joy.(A)

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25 A foolish son is grief to his father
and bitterness to the one who bore him.(A)

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13 A foolish son is his father’s ruin,(A)
and a wife’s nagging is an endless dripping.(B)

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26 The one who assaults his father and evicts his mother
is a disgraceful and shameful son.

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20 Whoever curses his father or mother(A)
his lamp will go out in deep darkness.(B)

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Teach a youth about the way he should go;(A)
even when he is old he will not depart from it.

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22 Listen to your father who gave you life,
and don’t despise your mother when[a] she is old.(A)
23 Buy—and do not sell—truth,
wisdom, instruction, and understanding.(B)
24 The father of a righteous son will rejoice greatly,
and one who fathers a wise son will delight in him.(C)
25 Let your father and mother have joy,(D)
and let her who gave birth to you rejoice.

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Footnotes

  1. Proverbs 23:22 Or because

24 The one who robs his father or mother(A)
and says, “That’s no sin,”(B)
is a companion to a man who destroys.(C)

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