While they sat at meat the scribe said: ‘O master, you said that God loves true humility. Tell us therefore what is humility, and how it can be true and false.’ [Jesus replied: ] “Truly I say to you that he who becomes not as a little child shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Every one was amazed at hearing this, and they said one to another: ‘Now how shall he become a little child who is thirty or forty years old? Surely, this is a hard saying.’
Jesus answered: ‘As God lives, in whose presence my soul stands, my words are true. I said to you that [a man] has need to become as a little child: for this is true humility. For if you ask a little child: “Who has made your garments?” he will answer: “My father.” If you ask him whose is the house where he lives, he will say: “My father’s.” If you shall say: “Who gives you to eat?” he will reply: “My father.” If you shall say: “Who has taught you to walk and to speak?” he will answer; “My father.” But if you shall say: “Who has broken your forehead, for that you have your forehead so bound up?” he will answer: “I fell down, and so did I break my head.”
If you shall say: “Now why did you fall down?” he will answer: “See you not that I am little, so that I have not the strength to walk and run like a grown man? so my father must needs take me by the hand if I would walk firmly. But in order that I might learn to walk well, my father left me for a little space, and I, wishing to run, fell down.” If you shall say: “And what said your father?” he will answer: “Now why did you not walk quite slowly? See that in future you leave not my side.”