A fable is a brief, succinct story, in prose or verse, that features animals, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature which are anthropomorphized (given human qualities), and that illustrates a moral lesson (a "moral"), which may at the end be expressed explicitly in a pithy maxim. A fable differs from a parable in that the latter excludes animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as actors that assume speech and other powers of humankind. Usage has not always been so clearly distinguished. In the King James Version of the Bible, the translators rendered "?????" ("mythos") as "fable" in the New Testament,For example, in First Timothy, "... neither give heed to fables ...", and "... refuse profane and old wives' fables..." (1 Tim 1.4 and 4.4, respectively). in First and Second Timothy, Titus and First Peter. Definitions .]].]]