Proverbs 14:3
In the mouth of a fool is the rod of pride: but the lips of the wise preserve them.
Open Proverbs 14:3 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- In ore stulti virga superbiæ ; labia autem sapientium custodiunt eos.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ἐκ στόματος ἀφρόνων βακτηρία ὕβρεως, χείλη δὲ σοφῶν φυλάσσει αὐτούς.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- בְּֽפִי אֱ֭וִיל חֹ֣טֶר גַּאֲוָ֑ה וְשִׂפְתֵ֥י חֲ֝כָמִ֗ים תִּשְׁמוּרֵֽם
Haydock's commentary
Pride. He chastiseth with haughtiness, and is ever quarrelling.
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
Clement of Alexandria The Instructor, Chapter VII. Directions for Those Who Live Together
Let us keep away from us jibing, the originator of insult, from which strifes and contentions and enmities burst forth. Insult, we have said, is the servant of drunkenness. A man is judged, not from his deeds alone, but from his words. “In a banquet,” it is said, “reprove not thy neighbour, nor say to him a word of reproach.” For if we are enjoined especially to associate with saints, it is a sin to jibe at a saint: “For from the mouth of the foolish,” says the Scripture, “is a staff of insult,”, meaning by staff the prop of insult, on which insult leans and rests. …
St Jerome Jerome's Apology for Himself Against the Books of Rufinus, Your letter is full of falsehood and violence. I will try not to take the same tone
I have read the letter which you in your wisdom have written me. You inveigh against me, and, though you once praised me and called me true partner and brother, you now write books to summon me to reply to the charges with which you terrify me. I see that in you are fulfilled the words of Solomon: “In the mouth of the foolish is the rod of contumely,” and “A fool receives not the words of prudence, unless you say what is passing in his heart;” and the words of Isaiah: “The fool will speak folly, and his heart will understand vain things, to practise iniquity and speak falsehood against the Lord.” For what need was there for you to send me whole volumes full of accusation and malediction, and to bring them before the public, when in the end of your letter you threaten me with death if I dare to reply to your slanders, I beg pardon, to your praises? For your praises and your accusations am …
St Ambrose On the Duties of the Clergy, Chapter IV. As it has been shown that he who injures another for the sake of his own advantage will undergo terrible punishment at the hand of his own conscience, it is referred that nothing is useful to one which is not in the same way useful to all. Thus there is no place among Christians for the question propounded by the philosophers about two shipwrecked persons, for they must show love and humility to all
24. Hence we infer that a man who guides himself according to the ruling of nature, so as to be obedient to her, can never injure another. If he injures another, he violates nature, nor will he think that what he has gained is so much an advantage as a disadvantage. And what punishment is worse than the wounds of the conscience within? What judgment harder than that of our hearts, whereby each one stands convicted and accuses himself of the injury that he has wrongfully done against his brother? This the Scriptures speak of very plainly, saying: “Out of the mouth of fools there is a rod for wrong-doing.” Folly, then, is condemned because it causes wrong-doing. Ought we not rather to avoid this, than death, or loss, or want, or exile, or sickness? Who would not think some blemish of body or loss of inheritance far less than some blemish of soul or loss of reputation?