Wisdom 4:6
For the children that are born of unlawful beds, are witnesses of wickedness against their parents in their trial.
Open Wisdom 4:6 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Ex iniquis enim somnis filii qui nascuntur, testes sunt nequitiæ adversus parentes in interrogatione sua.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ἐκ γὰρ ἀνόμων ὕπνων τέκνα γεννώμενα μάρτυρές εἰσιν πονηρίας κατὰ γονέων ἐν ἐξετασμῷ αὐτῶν·
Haydock's commentary
Beds. Literally, "sleep," somnis, upnon, chap. vii. 2. (Haydock)
Whether the children live or die, they are a reproach to their parents, as those who see them enquire about their birth.
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 Methodius The Banquet of the Ten Virgins; or Concerning Chastity, Chapter VI
But what need is there to protract the argument by using such examples? for nature could not thus, in a little time, accomplish so great a work without divine help. For who gave to the bones their fixed nature? and who bound the yielding members with nerves, to be extended and relaxed at the joints? or who prepared channels for the blood, and a soft windpipe for the breath? or what god caused the humours to ferment, mixing them with blood and forming the soft flesh out of the earth, but only the Supreme Artist making us to be man, the rational and living image of Himself, and forming it like wax, in the womb, from moist slight seed? or by whose providence was it that the fœtus was not suffocated by damp when shut up within, in the connexion of the vessels? or who, after it was brought forth and had come into the light, changed it from weakness and smallness to size, and beauty, and stren …