20 Bible Verses About Laziness

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 chapter opens with a father telling his son who has put up security for a neighbor to give his eyes “no sleep” until he is free (Proverbs 6:4). The next lines turn to the sluggard and send him to the ant. The ant has no chief, officer or ruler, yet she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest: she works without being driven, and at the right season. The verses that follow ask the sluggard, “How long will you lie there?”

Proverbs 24:30-34

“I passed by the field of a sluggard, by the vineyard of a man lacking sense, and behold, it was all overgrown with thorns; the ground was covered with nettles, and its stone wall was broken down. Then I saw and considered it; I looked and received instruction. A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man.”

Reflection: The speaker describes walking past the field and vineyard of “a man lacking sense” and finding thorns, nettles and a broken stone wall. He stops to look: “Then I saw and considered it; I looked and received instruction.” The instruction he takes from it is the saying that also follows the ant in Proverbs 6:10-11: a little sleep, and poverty comes “like a robber.” A few verses earlier, Proverbs 24:27 gives the order of work: “Prepare your work outside; get everything ready for yourself in the field, and after that build your house.”

Proverbs 20:4

“The sluggard does not plow in the autumn; he will seek at harvest and have nothing.”

Reflection: The sluggard skips the plowing in autumn. The loss shows only at harvest, when he goes looking for a crop and finds nothing.

Proverbs 10:4

“A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich.”

Reflection: The saying belongs to the collection headed “The proverbs of Solomon” (Proverbs 10:1). It sets the slack hand beside the diligent hand and names the outcome of each. The next verse applies it to the farm and to family honor: “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: The contrast is between ruling and forced labor. In this proverb the slothful do not escape work; they end up doing it under compulsion.

Proverbs 19:15

“Slothfulness casts into a deep sleep, and an idle person will suffer hunger.”

Reflection: The first line describes slothfulness as something that deepens itself, casting a person into “a deep sleep.” The second calls the lazy person “idle” and names the result plainly: he “will suffer hunger.”

Proverbs 13:4

“The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.”

Reflection: The sluggard in this verse wants things. His soul “craves,” and the craving produces nothing, while the soul of the diligent is “richly supplied.”

Proverbs 21:25-26

“The desire of the sluggard kills him, for his hands refuse to labor. All day long he craves and craves, but the righteous gives and does not hold back.”

Reflection: The sluggard’s desire kills him “for his hands refuse to labor”: he wants without working. The next line sets his all-day craving beside the righteous person, who “gives and does not hold back.”

Ecclesiastes 10:18

“Through sloth the roof sinks in, and through indolence the house leaks.”

Reflection: The Preacher’s picture is a house with a sagging roof and a leak, the slow damage of repairs never made. The saying comes two verses after a woe on the land “when your king is a child, and your princes feast in the morning” (Ecclesiastes 10:16).

Proverbs 26:13-16

“The sluggard says, ‘There is a lion in the road! There is a lion in the streets!’ As a door turns on its hinges, so does a sluggard on his bed. The sluggard buries his hand in the dish; it wears him out to bring it back to his mouth. The sluggard is wiser in his own eyes than seven men who can answer sensibly.”

Reflection: Four sayings in a row describe the sluggard. He invents a danger to stay indoors, a lion in the streets; Proverbs 22:13 gives the same excuse with “I shall be killed in the streets!” He turns in bed like a door on its hinges, moving without going anywhere. He is too tired to lift food from the dish to his mouth. And he thinks himself “wiser in his own eyes than seven men who can answer sensibly.”

Proverbs 15:19

“The way of a sluggard is like a hedge of thorns, but the path of the upright is a level highway.”

Reflection: The sluggard’s road is blocked with thorns, while the upright walk a level highway. The opposite of the sluggard in this verse is “the upright,” a moral word, so the proverb counts laziness as a matter of character as well as of results.

Proverbs 18:9

“Whoever is slack in his work is a brother to him who destroys.”

Reflection: The saying puts the slack worker in the same family as the one who destroys.

Proverbs 10:26

“Like vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes, so is the sluggard to those who send him.”

Reflection: This proverb is about a sluggard given an errand. Vinegar on the teeth and smoke in the eyes are small, sharp irritations, and the ones who feel them are “those who send him,” the people relying on him to deliver.

Matthew 25:26-27

“You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest.”

Reflection: In the parable of the talents, the servant given one talent buried it in the ground and told his master he had been afraid (Matthew 25:24-25). The master calls him “wicked and slothful,” using okneros, and says the least he could have done was put the money with the bankers. The talent is then taken from him and given to the servant who has ten (Matthew 25:28).

Romans 12:11

“Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.”

Reflection: The verse belongs to a run of short instructions to the church in Rome that starts with “Let love be genuine” (Romans 12:9). “Slothful” is okneros, the master’s word in Matthew 25:26, and the zeal it warns against losing is directed to serving the Lord. Two verses later the list turns practical: “Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.”

Hebrews 6:11-12

“And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”

Reflection: The writer has just told the readers that God will not overlook their work and the love they showed in “serving the saints, as you still do” (Hebrews 6:10). He wants the same earnestness to continue “until the end.” “Sluggish” is nothros, the word translated “dull” in Hebrews 5:11, “you have become dull of hearing,” and the cure offered is imitation of those who “through faith and patience inherit the promises.”

2 Peter 1:5-8

“For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Reflection: Peter lists qualities to add to faith one after another, from virtue to love, and says to “make every effort” at it. The qualities, he writes, keep believers from being “ineffective or unfruitful”; “ineffective” is argos, idle or lazy. Two verses later he repeats the charge: “be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election” (2 Peter 1:10).

Ecclesiastes 9:10

“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.”

Reflection: The verses before this one tell the reader to eat bread with joy and enjoy life with the wife he loves, “because that is your portion in life and in your toil” (Ecclesiastes 9:9). The Preacher’s reason for working with all one’s might is death: there is no work or thought in Sheol, so work belongs to this life.

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 is addressing bondservants, and the verse before tells them to obey “not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart” (Colossians 3:22). The work is to be done “as for the Lord,” and the reward named is an inheritance from him. The line “You are serving the Lord Christ” gives the reason for working heartily when no earthly master is watching.

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: Paul reminds the Thessalonians of a rule he gave in person. He had heard that some “walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies” (2 Thessalonians 3:11), and he points to his own example: he and his companions worked “night and day” so as not to be a burden (3:8). The rule is aimed at anyone “not willing” to work, and the command that follows is “to do their work quietly and to earn their own living” (3:12).