Proverbs 20:11
By his inclinations a child is known, if his works be clean and right.
Open Proverbs 20:11 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Ex studiis suis intelligitur puer, si munda et recta sint opera ejus.
- Septuagint (Swete) shown from Proverbs 20:14
- καὶ ὁ ποιῶν αὐτὰ ἐν τοῖς ἐπιτηδεύμασιν αὐτοῦ συνποδισθήσεται, νεανίσκος μετὰ ὁσίου· καὶ εὐθεῖα ἡ ὁδὸς αὐτοῦ.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- גַּ֣ם בְּ֭מַעֲלָלָיו יִתְנַכֶּר נָ֑עַר אִם זַ֖ךְ וְאִם יָשָׁ֣ר פָּעֳלֽוֹ
Haydock's commentary
Right. We may form some judgment of his future conduct, from the inclinations which he manifests in his infancy.
Naturam expellas furca, tamen ipsa recurret,
Et mala perrumpet furtim fastidia victrix. (Horace)
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
St John Cassian The Conferences of John Cassian. Part III. Containing Conferences XVIII.-XXIV, Chapter XXII. The answer on the way to keep control over abstinence
Theonas : If we weigh everything that we do, by a reasonable judgment of the mind, and on the purity of our heart always consult not the opinions of other people but our own conscience, that interval for refreshment is sure not to interfere with our proper strictness, if only, as was said, our pure mind impartially considers the right limits of indulgence and abstinence, and fairly checks excess in either, and with real discrimination discerns whether the weight of the delicacies is a burden upon our spirits, or whether too much austerity in abstaining weighs down the other side, i.e., that of the body, and either depresses or raises that side which it sees to be raised or weighed down. …