Provérbios 6

Provérbios 6:6

However, there is also in the nature of quadrupeds a prophetic speech that exhorts us to imitate, by which example we avoid laziness and do not turn away from the study of virtue due to the smallness or weakness of the body, nor are we drawn back from the magnitude of any purpose. For even the ant is small, yet it dares with its own strength to undertake greater things; nor is it compelled to work by servitude, but it prepares future supplies of food for itself by its own foresight. The Scripture urges you to imitate the industry of the ant, saying: Consider the ant, O sluggard, and imitate its ways, and be wiser than it (Proverbs, 6:6). For the ant possesses no property, and does not have someone to force it or act as its master. Yet it prepares food by storing the harvest of your labors for itself; and while you often lack, it does not. It has no closed granaries, no impenetrable protections, no inviolable storehouses. The guard watches but dares not prevent thefts: the owner sees his losses and does not seek retribution. The prey is carried through the fields in a black column, the roads sizzle with the crowd of wayfarers, and large quantities of grain that cannot be contained by a wide mouth are pushed with their shoulders. The master of the harvest observes these things and is ashamed to deny the profits of honest industry. — The Six Days of Creation