21 Bible Verses about Not Reaping What You Sow

For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are still five more years in which there will be no plowing and harvesting.

Be ashamed, O farmers;
Wail, O vinedressers,
For the wheat and for the barley,
Because the harvest of the field has perished.

“The harvest is past, the summer has ended and the gathering of fruit is over,
But we are not saved,” [comes the voice of the people again].

Woe is me (judgment is coming)! For I am
Like one who gathers the summer fruits, like one who gleans the vintage grapes.
There is not a cluster of grapes to eat,
No first-ripe fig which my appetite craves.

Speak, “Thus says the Lord,
‘The dead bodies of men will fall like dung on the open field,
And like sheaves [of grain] behind the reaper,
And no one will gather them.’”

For they sow the wind [in evil]
And they reap the whirlwind [in disaster].
The standing grain has no growth;
It yields no grain.
If it were to yield, strangers would swallow it up.

“You shall sow but you shall not reap;
You shall tread olives, but shall not anoint yourself with oil,
And [you will extract juice from] the grapes, but you shall not drink the wine.

With which the reaper does not fill his hand,
Nor the binder of sheaves his arms,

“Cut off the sower from Babylon
And the one who handles the sickle at the time of harvest.
For fear of the sword of the oppressor
Everyone will return to his own people
And everyone will flee to his own land.

He also gave their crops to the grasshopper,
And the fruit of their labor to the locust.

“The hungry devour his harvest
And take it even [when it grows] among the thorns;
The trap opens for [his] wealth.

Then let me plant and [let] another eat [from the results of my labor],
And let my crops be uprooted and ruined.

“They have planted wheat but have reaped thorns;
They have exhausted themselves but without profit.
So be ashamed of your harvest
Because of the fierce and raging anger of the Lord.”

He who watches the wind [waiting for all conditions to be perfect] will not sow [seed], and he who looks at the clouds will not reap [a harvest].

Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow [seed] nor reap [the harvest] nor gather [the crops] into barns, and yet your heavenly Father keeps feeding them. Are you not worth much more than they?

Consider the ravens, for they neither sow [seed] nor reap [the crop]; they have no storehouse or barn, and yet God feeds them. How much more valuable are you than the birds!

I was [always] afraid of you, because you are a stern man; you pick up what you did not lay down and you reap what you did not sow.’

“The one who had received one talent also came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a harsh and demanding man, reaping [the harvest] where you did not sow and gathering where you did not scatter seed.

“But his master answered him, ‘You wicked, lazy servant, you knew that I reap [the harvest] where I did not sow and gather where I did not scatter seed.

He said to the servant, ‘I will judge and condemn you by your own words, you worthless servant! Did you [really] know that I was a stern man, picking up what I did not lay down and reaping what I did not sow?

I sent you to reap [a crop] for which you have not worked. Others have worked and you have been privileged to reap the results of their work.”