Listen to your father who gave you life, and do not despise your mother when she is old.
Parallel translations
- WEB Listen to your father who gave you life, and don’t despise your mother when she is old.
- KJV Hearken unto thy father that begat thee, and despise not thy mother when she is old.
- NKJV Listen to your father who begot you, And do not despise your mother when she is old.
- NASB ¶Listen to your father, who fathered you, And do not despise your mother when she is old.
- NLT Listen to your father, who gave you life, and don’t despise your mother when she is old.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Listen to your father who gave you life, and honor your mother even in her old age.
Overview
Wisdom commands lifelong honor of parents, including the care and respect due to them when they are old. Despising an aging mother is condemned as a grave failure of love. This embodies the fifth commandment (Exod. 20:12), which Jesus upheld against those who used religion to evade caring for their parents (Mark 7:9-13).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Prov 30:17As for the eye that mocks a father and scorns obedience to a mother, may the ravens of the valley pluck it out and young vultures devour it.
- Prov 1:8Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction, and do not forsake the teaching of your mother.
- John 19:26–27When Jesus saw His mother and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, “Woman, here is your son.”
- Eph 6:1–2Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
- Prov 6:20My son, keep your father’s commandment, and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.
- Deut 27:16‘Cursed is he who dishonors his father or mother.’ And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’
- Matt 15:4–6For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’
- Lev 19:3Each of you must respect his mother and father, and you must keep My Sabbaths. I am the LORD your God.
- Mark 7:10For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’
- Deut 21:18–21If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and does not listen to them when disciplined,
- Prov 30:11There is a generation of those who curse their fathers and do not bless their mothers.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Wisdom personified, with God before creation and the agent of all things, anticipates Christ 'in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom' — the wisdom of God made flesh.
How Proverbs 23:22 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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