Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching,
for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck.
My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent.
If they say, “Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood; let us ambush the innocent without reason; like Sheol let us swallow them alive,
and whole, like those who go down to the pit;
we shall find all precious goods, we shall fill our houses with plunder;
throw in your lot among us; we will all have one purse”—
my son, do not walk in the way with them; hold back your foot from their paths,
for their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood.
For in vain is a net spread in the sight of any bird,
but these men lie in wait for their own blood; they set an ambush for their own lives.
Such are the ways of everyone who is greedy for unjust gain; it takes away the life of its possessors.
Comment: I’m an old man who is not prepared to accept unquestioningly every modern way. There are 3 ‘my son‘ passages here. 1. The first doesn’t advise them to listen to educators or child minders because the parents chose to put their children into child minding centres so that they can both work and get on in status and wealth! It tells the child (and I’m sure that ‘my son’ here means ‘my child’) to learn from both father and mother, how to think and to act wisely! 2. In the second instance the child is warned that sinners will try to get them to walk evilly. Who are the sinners? Well we are all ‘sinners’ and we don’t need others to tell us that. Honesty makes us confess that we don’t even live up perfectly to our own standards much less to God’s standards. But here the word ‘sinners’ is used to describe people who seek to divert children (young people) from the standards that mum and dad have set (providing of course that the parents have done their job of training well!) There are often peers who haven’t been taught well; or School or University teachers or lecturers who have been sold the ‘woke’ or extreme political views (whether they be to the right or to the left); or foolishly passed governmental laws permitting and often encouraging weird thinking and behaviour. 3. In the second my son is told not to be enticed, which means don’t let them settle in your mind and attitudes even though you can’t stop people trying to sell their rotten ways. This third goes beyond not listening to ‘most certainly don’t walk with the tempters in their ways. Their smart plans, in the end, entangle them in a mess. Often in this life they escape, but most certainly there is the Day of Judgement which we all must face.
Prayer: Whether a parent or a child please help me to listen to Your thinking as expressed in Your Word and to act appropriately.
As I read it! 