15 Bible Verses about Hard Labor

Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run like that, that you may win. Every man who strives in the games exercises self-control in all things. Now they do it to receive a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible. I therefore run like that, as not uncertainly. I fight like that, as not beating the air,read more.
but I beat my body and bring it into submission, lest by any means, after I have preached to others, I myself should be rejected.

You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your struggle against sin;

if by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect; but I press on, if it is so that I may take hold of that for which also I was taken hold of by Christ Jesus. Brothers, I do not regard myself as yet having taken hold, but one thing I do. Forgetting the things which are behind, and reaching forward to the things which are ahead,read more.
I press on toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

This was my situation: in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep fled from my eyes. These twenty years I have been in your house. I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for your flock, and you have changed my wages ten times. Unless the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely now you would have sent me away empty. God has seen my affliction and the labor of my hands, and rebuked you last night."

Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. They built storage cities for Pharaoh: Pithom and Raamses. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and the more they spread out. They were grieved because of the children of Israel. The Egyptians ruthlessly made the children of Israel serve,read more.
and they made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field, all their service, in which they ruthlessly made them serve.

But when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and to Ai, they also resorted to a ruse, and went and made as if they had been ambassadors, and took old sacks on their donkeys, and wineskins, old and torn and bound up, and old and patched shoes on their feet, and wore old garments. All the bread of their provision was dry and moldy.read more.
They went to Joshua to the camp at Gilgal, and said to him, and to the men of Israel, "We have come from a far country. Now therefore make a covenant with us." The men of Israel said to the Hivites, "What if you live among us. How could we make a covenant with you?" They said to Joshua, "We are your servants." Joshua said to them, "Who are you? Where do you come from?" They said to him, "Your servants have come from a very far country because of the name of the LORD your God; for we have heard of his fame, all that he did in Egypt, and all that he did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon king of Heshbon and to Og king of Bashan, who was at Ashtaroth. Our elders and all the inhabitants of our country spoke to us, saying, 'Take provision in your hand for the journey, and go to meet them, and tell them, "We are your servants. Now make a covenant with us."' This our bread we took hot for our provision out of our houses on the day we went out to go to you; but now, behold, it is dry, and has become moldy. These wineskins, which we filled, were new; and behold, they are torn. These our garments and our shoes have become old because of the very long journey." The men sampled their provisions, and did not ask counsel from the mouth of the LORD. Joshua made peace with them, and made a covenant with them, to let them live. The leaders of the congregation swore to them. It happened at the end of three days after they had made a covenant with them, that they heard that they were their neighbors, and that they lived among them. The children of Israel traveled and came to their cities on the third day. Now their cities were Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kiriath Jearim. The children of Israel did not strike them, because the leaders of the congregation had sworn to them by the LORD, the God of Israel. And the whole congregation murmured against the leaders. But all the leaders said to all the congregation, "We have sworn to them by the LORD, the God of Israel; and now therefore we may not touch them. This we will do to them, and let them live; lest wrath be on us, because of the oath which we swore to them." And the leaders said to them, "Let them live." So they became wood cutters and drawers of water for all the congregation, as the leaders had spoken to them. Joshua called for them, and he spoke to them, saying, "Why have you deceived us, saying, 'We are very far from you,' when you live among us? Now therefore you are cursed, and some of you will never fail to be bondservants, both wood cutters and drawers of water for the house of my God." They answered Joshua, and said, "Because your servants were certainly told how the LORD your God commanded his servant Moses to give you all the land, and to destroy all the inhabitants of the land from before you. Therefore we were very afraid for our lives because of you, and have done this thing. Now, behold, we are in your hand. Do to us as it seems good and right to you to do." He did so to them, and delivered them out of the hand of the children of Israel, so that they did not kill them. That day Joshua made them wood cutters and drawers of water for the congregation and for the altar of the LORD, to this day, in the place which he should choose.

She said, "The Philistines are upon you, Samson." He awoke out of his sleep, and said, "I will go out as at other times, and shake myself free." But he didn't know that the LORD had departed from him. The Philistines seized him, and put out his eyes. And they brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with bronze shackles, and he ground at the mill in the prison.

The sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eats little or much; but the abundance of the rich will not allow him to sleep.

Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in Sheol, where you are going.

Moreover I have heard the groaning of the children of Israel, whom the Egyptians keep in bondage, and I have remembered my covenant.

This is the reason of the levy which king Solomon raised, to build the house of the LORD, and his own house, and Millo, and the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, and Megiddo, and Gezer.

In all hard work there is profit, but the talk of the lips leads only to poverty.

To Adam he said, "Because you have listened to your wife's voice, and have eaten of the tree, of which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground for your sake. In toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.

The Philistines seized him, and put out his eyes. And they brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with bronze shackles, and he ground at the mill in the prison.

The young men grind at the mill; the boys stagger under loads of wood.