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Wisdom of Sirach 42:9

A daughter is a wakeful care to a father; and the care for her takes away sleep: when she is young, lest she pass away the flower of her age; and being married, lest she should be hated:

All Commentaries on Wisdom of Sirach 42:9 Go To Wisdom of Sirach 42

John Chrysostom

AD 407

The enemy of holiness always presses virgins and troubles them, ready to devour them if someone wavers and falls. There are many insidious men, and beyond all this there is the fury of nature. She must prepare for a twofold war: one that attacks from the outside, and the other that disturbs within. Thus great is the fear of one who protects them, greater the danger and the anguish if something unwanted happens. If an enclosed daughter robs her father of sleep and anxiety for her keeps him awake over fear that she will be sterile or that she would age or no longer be loved, what would the suffering be of one who is worried not for these reasons but for other, much more serious ones? Here one does not refuse a man but Christ himself. Here sterility does not end in ignominy but in harm, in the ruin of the soul. "Every tree," says the Scripture, "that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown in the fire."

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Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation - 2 Peter 1:20