 the Bible says train a child in the way that he or she should go and when they're old they will not depart. But how come it doesn't seem to always work? Maybe because that's not what it says. You can go. You can have two or three or four children in the same household and one of those children might go astray. You're wondering, wait a second, I've done everything that I'm supposed to do. Why did that child go astray? Even better yet, why when God who's the better parent of all, he's the he's the greatest parent of all time, how is it that even the children of Israel under his parenting went astray? Well here's the answer because Proverbs 226 doesn't say what our Bible says. That sound a little bit blasphemous? That sounds like those Hebrew texts. So let's see what the passage says in Hebrew and then maybe we'll see exactly what God's word says and let's see then if it works at 100% because right now if we follow it how it says in the English, that doesn't seem to work a hundred percent of the time. It cannot be that God is not always a hundred percent right. So let's see what it says. The Hebrew text does not have the word in the way that he should go. Rather what it says and granted I know that many of you don't know Hebrew but what it actually says is Alpe Derko which means upon the mouth of his way. That sounds odd. I've never heard that. It is a Hebrew idiom where we get the construction according to his way. What it means is this according to his bent or how the child is. Now the problem with that is we mistake the first part train to be a command but it's not a command. What it actually is is it's a warning. If you train a child according to his bent according to his nature then when he's old he won't depart. Say for example you've got a child maybe he's five maybe she's 10 15 what have you and this child is messy or the child has a bad attitude. The child is stubborn whatever. If you train that child allowing him to move according to that then allow him to remain selfish remain messy remain whatever when he's old if he's a five year old kid who's messy he'll be a 15 year old kid and a 25 and a 35 and a 55 and a 65 year old kid who's messy if he's got a bad attitude if he's selfish at six he'll have a he'll be selfish at 16 46 and 86 so now in light of what it actually says now it makes sense and now we see that God's word doesn't fail. If you train a child in his natural nature and remember we all have a natural sin nature so if little Bobby little Susie continues to grow and develop with that natural sin nature when he is old he will not depart.