29 Bible Verses about Useless Labour

I shall be condemned. Why then do I labor in vain?

In all your dwelling places the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate, that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease, and your sun-images may be hewn down,

Behold, is it not of LORD of hosts that the peoples labor for the fire, and the nations weary themselves for vanity?

Now David had said, Surely in vain have I kept all that this fellow has in the wilderness so that nothing was missed of all that pertained to him, and he has returned me evil for good.

Our eyes do yet fail [in looking] for our vain help. In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save.

and your strength shall be spent in vain, for your land shall not yield its increase, nor shall the trees of the land yield their fruit.

Thus says LORD of hosts: The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly overthrown, and her high gates shall be burned with fire. And the peoples shall labor for vanity, and the nations for the fire, and they shall be weary.

It is vain for you to rise up early, to take rest late, to eat the bread of toil, [for] so he gives sleep to his beloved.

I also will do this to you: I will appoint terror over you, even consumption and fever, that shall consume the eyes, and make the soul to pine away. And ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.

For in vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird,

The bellows blow fiercely, the lead is consumed of the fire. In vain do they go on refining, for the wicked are not plucked away.

I am afraid of you, lest somehow I have labored toward you in vain.

But I said, I have labored in vain. I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity. Yet surely the justice [due] to me is with LORD, and my recompense with my God.

Have confidence in those who lead you, and yield yourselves, for they watch for your souls as men who will render account, so that they may do this with joy, and not groaning, for this is unprofitable for you.

For Egypt helps in vain, and to no purpose. Therefore I have called her Rahab who sits still.

In vain I have smitten your sons. They received no correction. Your own sword has devoured your prophets like a destroying lion.

and some man of you would say to them, Go in peace, be ye warmed and fed, but ye would not give them the things necessary for the body, what is the benefit?

And he shall separate to LORD the days of his separation, and shall bring a he-lamb a year old for a trespass-offering. But the former days shall be void, because his separation was defiled.

And they shall comfort you when ye see their way and their doings. And ye shall know that I have not done all that I have done in it, without cause, says lord LORD.

And they shall know that I am LORD. I have not said in vain that I would do this evil to them.

And I went up according to revelation, and I declared to them the good-news that I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to those who were of repute, lest somehow I might be running or ran in vain.

Because of this, I too, no longer covering over it, sent in order to know your faith, lest somehow he who tempts was tempting you, and our labor became in vain.

Did ye suffer so many things in vain? If it is indeed in vain.

They shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth for calamity. For they are the seed of the blessed of LORD, and their offspring with them.

But I sent the brothers so that our boast about you would not be empty in this regard. So that, as I said, ye may be prepared,

Holding firm the word of life, for a boast by me in the day of Christ, that I did not run in vain nor labor in vain.

I therefore run this way, not as aimlessly. I fight this way, not as flaying air.

Therefore, my beloved brothers, become ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not empty in Lord.

For ye yourselves know, brothers, our entrance with you, that it has not become empty.