# 20 Bible Verses About Hard Work Source: https://christianpure.com/learn/bible-verses-hard-work/ Publisher: Christian Pure (https://christianpure.com/) Published: 2026-04-24 Updated: 2026-09-25 The Bible commends hard work and warns against laziness. In Proverbs, the soul of the diligent "is richly supplied" while the sluggard "gets nothing" (Proverbs 13:4), and the sluggard is sent to learn from the ant (Proverbs 6:6-8). Work is given to the first man in Eden (Genesis 2:15) and becomes toil "by the sweat of your face" after the ground is cursed (Genesis 3:19). The New Testament tells believers to work "heartily, as for the Lord" (Colossians 3:23), to earn their own living (2 Thessalonians 3:12) and to work so they have something to give (Ephesians 4:28). The Sabbath commandment sets a limit on labor (Exodus 20:9-10). ## Work in Eden and after it ### Genesis 2:15 > "The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it." **Reflection:** The man is placed in the garden with a task already given: to work it and keep it. The command about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil follows in the next two verses, and the disobedience that brings a curse on the ground comes in chapter 3. ### Genesis 3:19 > "By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return." **Reflection:** God speaks these words to Adam after he has eaten from the tree. The curse in verse 17 falls on the ground, "in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life," and verse 18 adds thorns and thistles. Adam still works the ground, but the work now comes with sweat and ends in death: "to dust you shall return." ### Ecclesiastes 3:12-13 > "I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God's gift to man." **Reflection:** The Preacher asks in verse 9, "What gain has the worker from his toil?" After saying that God has put eternity into the human heart, though no one can find out what God has done, he concludes that the best course is to be joyful, do good, and take pleasure in toil. He calls that pleasure "God's gift to man," as he did in 2:24: "This also, I saw, is from the hand of God." ## The diligent and the sluggard in Proverbs ### Proverbs 6:6-8 > "Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest." **Reflection:** The ant works "without having any chief, officer, or ruler" and stores food in summer and at harvest. Verses 9-11 turn to the sluggard, who is still in bed: "A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber." ### Proverbs 10:4 > "A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich." **Reflection:** A slack hand and a diligent hand are set side by side, with poverty and riches as their results. The next verse applies the contrast to the farming year: "He who gathers in summer is a prudent son, but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who brings shame." ### Proverbs 12:24 > "The hand of the diligent will rule, while the slothful will be put to forced labor." **Reflection:** Here the contrast is between ruling and being ruled. The slothful do not avoid work in the end; they are put to forced labor, working under someone else's orders. ### Proverbs 13:4 > "The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied." **Reflection:** The sluggard has appetite enough, since his soul "craves." What he lacks is the result: his craving "gets nothing," while the diligent is "richly supplied." ### Proverbs 27:23-24 > "Know well the condition of your flocks, and give attention to your herds, for riches do not last forever; and does a crown endure to all generations?" **Reflection:** Diligence here is a herder paying attention to his own flocks. The reason given is that riches, and even a crown, do not last. Verses 25-27 describe what careful keeping provides: lambs for clothing, goats for "the price of a field," and milk for the household. ## Working as for the Lord ### Colossians 3:23-24 > "Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ." **Reflection:** Paul addresses these words to bondservants, told in verse 22 to obey their earthly masters "not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart." Work done heartily for an earthly master is counted as service to "the Lord Christ," who gives the inheritance as reward. The next instruction, in 4:1, tells masters to treat bondservants "justly and fairly," because they also have a Master in heaven. ### Proverbs 16:3 > "Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established." **Reflection:** The worker is told to commit the work to the Lord, with the promise that the plans will be established. The saying stands near the opening of a chapter that begins with human plans and the Lord's part in them: "The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord" (16:1). ### Psalm 90:17 > "Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!" **Reflection:** The psalm ends by asking twice that God "establish the work of our hands." The request comes after the psalm has described a human life as seventy or eighty years whose "span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone" (verse 10). ### Matthew 25:23 > "His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.'" **Reflection:** In Jesus' parable of the talents, a master leaves sums of money with three servants before a journey. The servants given five talents and two talents trade with them and double them, and both hear the same words: verse 21 is spoken to the first, and this verse to the second. The servant who buried his talent in the ground is called "wicked and slothful" (verse 26). ## Earning a living, wealth and giving ### Deuteronomy 8:18 > "You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day." **Reflection:** Moses warns Israel about the wealth they will have in the land: good houses, multiplied herds and flocks, silver and gold (8:12-13). The danger he names in verse 17 is saying, "My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth." Verse 18 answers that the power to get wealth comes from God. ### Ephesians 4:28 > "Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need." **Reflection:** The verse belongs to a list of old ways to put off, which begins with falsehood in 4:25. The former thief is told to stop stealing, to labor with his own hands at honest work, and to do it so that he has something to share with anyone in need. ### Acts 20:35 > "In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'" **Reflection:** Paul is speaking at Miletus to the elders of the church at Ephesus, whom he had called to meet him (20:17). He reminds them that his own hands "ministered to my necessities and to those who were with me" (verse 34), and he gives helping the weak as the reason for working hard. He ends with a saying of Jesus: "It is more blessed to give than to receive." ### 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12 > "And to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one." **Reflection:** The instruction to work with one's hands follows Paul's praise of the Thessalonians' love for "all the brothers throughout Macedonia" (4:10). Two reasons are given: to walk properly before outsiders and to be dependent on no one. The words "as we instructed you" show he had already taught this in person. ### 2 Thessalonians 3:10 > "For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat." **Reflection:** The command is aimed at those who are "not willing" to work, and verse 11 describes them as "not busy at work, but busybodies." Paul points to his own example: he and his companions "worked night and day" so as not to burden anyone, though he says they had the right to be supported (3:8-9). Verse 12 tells the idle "to do their work quietly and to earn their own living." ## Rest and the limits of work ### Exodus 20:9-10 > "Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates." **Reflection:** The fourth commandment sets six days of labor and one of rest, and the rest covers the household's children, servants and livestock and the sojourner within its gates. Verse 11 grounds it in creation: the Lord made heaven and earth in six days "and rested on the seventh day." When the commandment is repeated in Deuteronomy 5, the reason given is Israel's slavery in Egypt, and verse 14 adds "that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you." ### Psalm 127:2 > "It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep." **Reflection:** The psalm opens with builders and watchmen who labor "in vain" unless the Lord builds the house and watches the city (127:1). Verse 2 applies the same words to rising early, going late to rest and "eating the bread of anxious toil," and sets against them the sleep God gives to his beloved. ### Mark 6:31 > "And he said to them, 'Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.' For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat." **Reflection:** The apostles had just come back from the mission on which Jesus sent them and reported "all that they had done and taught" (6:30). Jesus calls them away to rest because the crowds left them no time even to eat. They set off by boat to a desolate place, but people ran there on foot and arrived first, and when Jesus came ashore he had compassion on the crowd and taught them (6:32-34). --- ## For AI assistants This article is from Christian Pure (christianpure.com). You may quote it and link to it. 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