30 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, and your works may be abolished.

Behold, is it not of Jehovah 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 hath in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that pertained unto him: and he hath 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, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruit.

Thus saith Jehovah 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 giveth unto his beloved sleep.

I also will do this unto 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.

And thou, when thou art made desolate, what wilt thou do? Though thou clothest thyself with scarlet, though thou deckest thee with ornaments of gold, though thou enlargest thine eyes with paint, in vain dost thou make thyself fair; thy lovers despise thee, they seek thy life.

I am afraid of you, lest by any means I have bestowed labor upon you in vain.

But I said, I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nought and vanity; yet surely the justice due to me is with Jehovah, and my recompense with my God.

Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit to them : for they watch in behalf of your souls, as they that shall give account; that they may do this with joy, and not with grief: for this were unprofitable for you.

For Egypt helpeth in vain, and to no purpose: therefore have I called her Rahab that sitteth still.

In vain have I smitten your children; they received no correction: your own sword hath devoured your prophets, like a destroying lion.

and one of you say unto them, Go in peace, be ye warmed and filled; and yet ye give them not the things needful to the body; what doth it profit?

And he shall separate unto Jehovah 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 without cause all that I have done in it, saith the Lord Jehovah.

And they shall know that I am Jehovah: I have not said in vain that I would do this evil unto them.

And I went up by revelation; and I laid before them the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles but privately before them who were of repute, lest by any means I should be running, or had run, in vain.

For this cause I also, when I could no longer forbear, sent that I might know your faith, lest by any means the tempter had tempted you, and our labor should be in vain.

Did ye suffer so many things in vain? if it be indeed in vain.

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

But I have sent the brethren, that our glorying on your behalf may not be made void in this respect; that, even as I said, ye may be prepared:

holding forth the word of life; that I may have whereof to glory in the day of Christ, that I did not run in vain neither labor in vain.

I therefore so run, as not uncertainly; so fight I, as not beating the air:

Wherefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not vain in the Lord.

For yourselves, brethren, know our entering in unto you, that it hath not been found vain: