Just as speaking against God is punished with death and great wrath, so too are offenses against parents. One who disregards God's commands and chooses to provoke the ultimate Judge faces a merciless end; likewise, one who scorns their parents' guidance shall meet a harsh fate as prescribed by Divine law. In Deuteronomy, it states: "If a man has a son who is stubborn and rebellious, who does not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and when they have chastened him he does not heed them, then his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of his home, and they shall declare to the elders of his city: ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, he will not listen to our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones; so you shall put away the evil from among you; and all Israel shall hear and fear" (Deut. 21:18-21). Can one still doubt that immediately following reverence for God comes the respect owed to parents? Palladius. No. The imperative to honor them is reinforced not only by the wise words, "Remember that you were born of them" (Sir. 7:30), but also by the patriarch Jacob, who humbly stated, “Unless the fear of Isaac my father had been with me” (Gen. 31:42). Cyril. Therefore, when we say that we are born of them, does it not clearly indicate that they reflect the likeness of the Divine Companion, the one who brought forth what did not previously exist? And the necessity of honoring them with reverence elevates their status almost to that of the Lord Himself? P. Indeed, it does. For this reason, a wise author declares, "The eye that mocks a father, and despises obedience to a mother, shall be pecked out by the ravens of the valley" (Proverbs 30:17).
THEOSIS