Bible Verses About Idleness

How long will you lie there, O slacker? When will you get up from your sleep?

A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest,

and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and need like a bandit.

Idle hands make one poor, but diligent hands bring wealth.

He who gathers in summer is a wise son, but he who sleeps during harvest is a disgraceful son.

I went past the field of a slacker and by the vineyard of a man lacking judgment.

Thorns had grown up everywhere, thistles had covered the ground, and the stone wall was broken down.

A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest,

and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and need like a bandit.

The slacker says, “A lion is in the road! A fierce lion roams the public square!”

As a door turns on its hinges, so the slacker turns on his bed.

The slacker buries his hand in the dish; it wearies him to bring it back to his mouth.

The slacker is wiser in his own eyes than seven men who answer discreetly.

About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’ he asked.

‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered. So he told them, ‘You also go into my vineyard.’

Then another servant came and said, ‘Master, here is your mina, which I have laid away in a piece of cloth.

For I was afraid of you, because you are a harsh man. You withdraw what you did not deposit and reap what you did not sow.’

His master replied, ‘You wicked servant, I will judge you by your own words. So you knew that I am a harsh man, withdrawing what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow?

Why then did you not deposit my money in the bank, and upon my return I could have collected it with interest?’

Then he told those standing by, ‘Take the mina from him and give it to the one who has ten minas.’

‘Master,’ they said, ‘he already has ten!’

For even while we were with you, we gave you this command: “If anyone is unwilling to work, he shall not eat.”

Yet we hear that some of you are leading undisciplined lives and accomplishing nothing but being busybodies.