Proverbs 20:4
Because of the cold the sluggard would not plough: he shall beg therefore in the summer, and it shall not be given him.
Open Proverbs 20:4 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Propter frigus piger arare noluit ; mendicabit ergo æstate, et non dabitur illi.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ὀνειδιζόμενος ὀκνηρὸς οὐκ αἰσχύνεται, ὡσαύτως καὶ ὁ δανιζόμενος σῖτον ἐν ἀμήτῳ.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- מֵ֭חֹרֶף עָצֵ֣ל לֹא יַחֲרֹ֑שׁ ישאל בַּקָּצִ֣יר וָאָֽיִן
The Fathers on this verse
St Gregory the Great The Book of Pastoral Rule, How the slothful and the hasty are to be admonished
( Admonition 16.) Differently to be admonished are the slothful and the hasty. For the former are to be persuaded not to lose, by putting it off, the good they have to do; but the latter are to be admonished lest, while they forestall the time of good deeds by inconsiderate haste, they change their meritorious character. To the slothful therefore it is to be intimated, that often, when we will not do at the right time what we can, before long, when we will, we cannot. For the very indolence of the mind, when it is not kindled with befitting fervour, gets cut off by a torpor that stealthily grows upon it from all desire of good things. Whence it is plainly said through Solomon, Slothfulness casteth into a deep sleep ( Prov. xix. 15 ). …