OLD TESTAMENTNEW TESTAMENT

Proverbs 3:12

For whom the LORD loves he corrects; even as a father the son in whom he delights.
Read Chapter 3

Augustine of Hippo

AD 430
What here and now is the punishment of those who go astray? Some affliction perhaps, and some scourging that is for the purpose of either correcting or testing. Either, you see, people are corrected for their sins to avoid their incurring, uncorrected, severer punishments, or else their faith is being tested, to see with what endurance or what patience it remains intact under the Father’s chastisement. [In either case,] not grumbling angrily at the Father when he chastises and rejoicing at his caresses; but so rejoicing at his caresses that one also thanks him for chastising; because “he chastises every son whom he receives.” ..

Augustine of Hippo

AD 430
It is written, after all, “The Lord disciplines the one he loves, and scourges every son whom he receives.” Let us not fall away, then, under the lash, so that we may rejoice in the resurrection. So true is it, after all, that he scourges every son whom he receives, that he did not spare his only Son but handed him over for us all. So fixing our gaze on him, who was scourged without any sin to deserve it, and who died for our offenses and “rose again for our justification,” let us not be afraid of being cast aside when we are scourged, but rather [let us] be confident that we will be received when we are justified.

Augustine of Hippo

AD 430
“Whom the Lord loves, he chastises; and he scourges every son whom he accepts.” … For, it is just that we who were dismissed from the pristine happiness of paradise because of our bold appetite for pleasures should be taken back through the humble endurance of difficulties, fugitives through our own evildoing, returning through suffering evils, there acting contrary to justice, here suffering for justice sake.
< 1 min3/11

Augustine of Hippo

AD 430
What clearer evidence is there for pointing to God’s grace than in the case where we receive what we ask for in prayer? For if our Lord had said, “Watch that you enter not into temptation,” he would appear to have merely given an admonition to man’s will, whereas when he added the words “and pray,” he made it clear that it is God who helps us so that we do not fall into temptation. It is to human free will that these words have been directed: “Son, do not fall away from the correction of the Lord.”
< 1 min4/11

Basil the Great

AD 379
Not all sicknesses for whose treatment we observe medicine to be occasionally beneficial arise from natural causes, whether from faulty diet or from any other physical origin. Illness is often a punishment for sin imposed for our conversion.… Consequently, when we who belong to this class [of sinners] have recognized our transgressions, we should bear in silence and without recourse to medicine all the afflictions which come to us, in accordance with the words, “I will bear the wrath of the Lord because I have sinned against him.”
< 1 min5/11

Cassiodorus Senator

AD 585
[The Lord] visits with a rod when he imposes stern punishment. In the same spirit Paul when writing to the Corinthians said, “What will you? Shall I come to you with a rod? Or in charity and in the spirit of meekness?” He also visits us with stripes when he takes lighter vengeance on us; for a rod strikes us in one way, but whips flick us in another. Clearly each of these befalls Christian people according to the nature of their sin, enabling them to make progress toward salvation. As Solomon puts it: “For whom the Lord loves, he chastises; he whips every son whom he accepts.”

Clement Of Rome

AD 99
We must accept correction, dear friends. No one should resent it. Warnings we give each other are good and thoroughly beneficial. For they bind us to God’s will. This is what the holy Word says about it: “The Lord has disciplined me severely and has not given me up to death. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and punishes every son he accepts.” … Do not refuse the Almighty’s warning. For he inflicts pain and then makes us all well again. He smites, but his hands heal.
< 1 min7/11

Cyprian of Carthage

AD 258
If God chastises whom he loves, and chastises that he may correct, brethren also, and priests particularly, do not hate but love those whom they chastise that they may correct, since God also prophesied before through Jeremiah and pointed to our own time saying, “I will give you pastors according to my own heart, and they shall nourish you, feeding you with discipline.”
< 1 min8/11

George Leo Haydock

AD 1849
And as. Septuagint, "but he scourgeth every son whom he receiveth "as St. Paul quotes this passage, Hebrews xii. 6. The verb is now wanting in Hebrew, or ceab; "as a father "may signify "scourgeth, in piel, (Menochius) with i prefixed. (Calmet)
< 1 min9/11

Jerome

AD 420
The father schools only him whom he loves. The master rebukes only the pupil who he sees has a more zealous talent. Once the doctor stops trying to cure, he gives up hope. Your response may well be, “As Lazarus endured evils in his life, so I shall gladly endure torments now, so that glory may be stored up for me in the future; for the Lord will not punish the same sin twice.” The reason why Job, a holy and spotless man, a man just in his own day, suffered so grievously, is described in his book.
< 1 min10/11

Tertullian of Carthage

AD 220
If we believe some blow of misfortune is struck by God, to whom would it be better that we manifest patience than to our Lord? In fact, more than this, it befits us to rejoice at being deemed worthy of divine chastisement: “As for me,” he says, “those whom I love I chastise.” Blessed is that servant upon whose amendment the Lord insists, at whom he deigns to be angry, whom he does not deceive by omitting his admonition! On Patience
< 1 min11/11

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

App Store LogoPlay Store Logo