Proverbs 27:22
Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him.
Cross-references
In Proverbs 17:10, a hundred lashes do not change a fool, matching the futility of grinding folly out here.
Proverbs 10:13 says a rod is for the fool's back—while 27:22 shows even extreme grinding fails. Both address discipline for fools but with different outcomes.
In 2 Chronicles 28:22, King Ahaz becomes more faithless under distress — a clear example of folly persisting despite grinding.
In Isaiah 1:5, Israel continues to rebel despite being struck — the fool's folly that grinding cannot remove.
In Jeremiah 5:3, the people are struck but refuse correction — exactly the fool's folly that won't depart despite grinding.
In Revelation 16:11, people curse God but do not repent despite plagues—mirroring the fool's stubbornness even under extreme punishment.
In Jeremiah 13:23, the impossibility of changing one's nature parallels the fool's unremovable folly here.
2 Kings 1:13 shows a captain who learns from prior deaths and humbles himself—contrasting the fool who cannot be changed by punishment.
Psalm 85:8 warns against turning to folly—contrasting the fool in Proverbs who is already entrenched and cannot be freed from it.
In Hosea 7:10, Israel's persistent arrogance despite punishment mirrors the fool's stubbornness that grinding cannot cure.