Listen, my sons, to a father’s instruction; pay attention and gain understanding. I give you sound learning, so do not forsake my teaching … Hold on to instruction, do not let it go; guard it well, for it is your life. Do not set foot on the path of the wicked or walk in the way of evildoers. Avoid it, do not travel on it; turn from it and go on your way. For they cannot rest until they do evil; they are robbed of sleep till they make someone stumble. They eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence. Proverbs 4:1-2, 13-17
Elias’s voice was already a fragile whisper, but his words carried the weight of a lifetime. From his bed, surrounded by the smell of medicine and old age, he held the hand of his son, Rodrigo, and pointed to his grandson, Luan, a fifteen-year-old teenager who was looking at his phone in the corner of the room.
“Rodrigo,” Elias whispered. “The world out there… it’s the same as always. The traps just change color. Make him understand. The wisdom I gave you… pass it on to him. It is the only inheritance that matters.”
Rodrigo swallowed hard. He remembered his father saying these same things to him years ago. Back then, the words had seemed abstract. Today, he understood every syllable. He was the middle link, the man who had received the inheritance and fought not to lose it.
The problem was Luan. A good kid, but one who was being seduced by the “paths of the wicked” in their twenty-first-century version. Evil did not invite him to rob a traveler, as in the proverb. It invited him to something more subtle.
At school, popularity belonged to Valentim’s group, young people who found power in humiliation. Their “bread of wickedness” was cyberbullying. They could not sleep if they did not do evil: they created cruel memes, spread rumors in WhatsApp groups, and filmed humiliating pranks to post online. Luan, desperate to be accepted, began to laugh along, to share, to become an accomplice.
“It’s just a joke, Dad. Everyone does it,” he would say to Rodrigo when confronted.
Rodrigo tried to use his grandfather’s words. “Son, when you love wisdom, she will guard you. Do not walk with them. That path seems fun, but its end is bitterness.”
To Luan, that was a lecture. A speech disconnected from his reality.
A week after Elias’s death, Rodrigo found Luan in his room, elated.
“Dad, look at this! Valentim invited me to hang out with them! They’re going to let me in the group!”
Rodrigo’s heart went cold. He knew what that meant. Valentim had given Luan a “test”: he was to be responsible for filming the next “prank.” The target was Samuel, a shy, studious boy.
That night, Rodrigo could not sleep. He felt powerless. Shouting would not work. Forbidding him would only increase his rebellion. He prayed to God, asking for the wisdom his father had spoken of so often.
The next morning, instead of giving another lecture, Rodrigo called Luan to his furniture restoration workshop. He took out an old wooden chest, the first piece of furniture his father, Elias, had taught him to make.
“Your grandfather gave me this when I was your age,” Rodrigo said, running his hand over the worn wood. “He said my inheritance was inside it.”
Luan rolled his eyes, expecting a speech. But Rodrigo just opened the chest. Inside, there was nothing of value. Just old letters, yellowed photos, and a small Bible with a frayed leather cover.
Rodrigo picked up a letter.
“I had my Valentim, too,” he said, surprising his son. “His name was Ricardo. He invited me to join a scheme to steal car parts from the warehouse where I worked. It was the easy way. I almost went.”
He paused, looking at Luan’s attentive face.
“But the night before, your grandfather sat me down here, in this very workshop. He didn’t yell. He told me how his own father almost lost everything because of dishonesty. He told me about the shame, about the pain. He gave me the wisdom he himself had received. He made me choose.”
Rodrigo picked up the small Bible.
“He told me: ‘Wisdom is the principal thing, Rodrigo. With all your getting, get understanding.’ I chose to listen. Ricardo was arrested a month later. I stayed here, with my hands dirty with grease, but with a clean soul.”
He looked into his son’s eyes. “Luan, what you are going to do to Samuel… it is not a joke. It is the same path as Ricardo’s. It is the bread of wickedness. You are choosing which table you will eat from.”
Rodrigo closed the chest.
“The inheritance is there. The wisdom your grandfather gave me, I now give to you. The choice is yours.”
That day at school, Luan saw Valentim and his group surrounding Samuel in the courtyard. The phone in his pocket felt like it weighed a ton. He saw the fear in Samuel’s eyes and the cruel amusement in Valentim’s. And he remembered the chest. The inheritance.
He did not join the circle. Instead, he walked in the opposite direction, went to a teacher, and said:
“Sir, they’re messing with Samuel. I think he needs help.”
That night, Luan found his father in the workshop. He did not say anything, just picked up a piece of sandpaper and began to help restore an old chair. The silence between them was not one of tension, but of understanding. Luan had been tested. And, in the moment of decision, he had chosen. He had embraced wisdom, and the inheritance of his heart had guarded him.
(Made with AI)
This story is part of my book Everyday Wisdom
https://books2read.com/u/3knogL
