Listen to your father, who gave you life, and don’t 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.
- BSB Listen to your father who gave you life, and do not despise your 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.
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 30:17“The eye that mocks at his father, and scorns obedience to his mother: the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, the young eagles shall eat it.
- Prov 1:8My son, listen to your father’s instruction, and don’t forsake your mother’s teaching:
- John 19:26–27Therefore when Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing there, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, 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 don’t forsake your mother’s teaching.
- Deut 27:16‘Cursed is he who dishonors his father or his mother.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’
- Matt 15:4–6For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him be put to death.’
- Lev 19:3“‘Each one of you shall respect his mother and his father. You shall keep my Sabbaths. I am Yahweh your God.
- Mark 7:10For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother;’ and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him be put to death.’
- Deut 21:18–21If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son, who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and though they chasten him, will not listen to them;
- Prov 30:11There is a generation that curses their father, and doesn’t bless their mother.
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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