30 Bible Verses about Useless Labour

“I am accounted wicked and held guilty;
Why then should I labor in vain [to appear innocent]?

Everywhere you live, the cities will become waste and the high places will become deserted, so that your altars may bear their guilt and become deserted, your idols may be broken and destroyed, your incense altars [for sun-worship] may be cut down, and your works may be blotted out.

“Is it not indeed from the Lord of hosts
That peoples labor [only] for the fire [that will destroy their work],
And nations grow weary for nothing [that is, things which have no lasting value]?

Now David had said, “Surely in vain I have protected and guarded all that this man has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missing of all that belonged to him; and he has repaid me evil for good.

[And as for us,] yet our eyes failed,
Looking in vain for help.
Watching [from the towers] we watched
For a nation that could not save.

Your strength will be spent uselessly, for your land will not yield its produce and the trees of the land will not yield their fruit.

Thus says the Lord of hosts,

“The broad wall of Babylon will be completely overthrown and the foundations razed
And her high gates will be set on fire;
The peoples will labor in vain,
And the nations become exhausted [only] for fire [that will destroy their work].”

It is vain for you to rise early,
To retire late,
To eat the bread of anxious labors—
For He gives [blessings] to His beloved even in his sleep.

I, in turn, will do this to you: I will appoint over you sudden terror, consumption, and fever that will waste away the eyes and cause the soul to languish also. And you will sow your seed uselessly, for your enemies will eat what you plant.

Indeed, it is useless to spread the baited net
In the sight of any bird;

The bellows blow fiercely,
The lead is consumed by the fire;
In vain they continue refining,
But the wicked are not separated and removed.

And you, O desolate one, what will you do?
Though you clothe yourself in scarlet,
Though you adorn yourself with ornaments of gold,
Though you enlarge your eyes with paint,
You make yourself beautiful in vain.
Your lovers (allies) despise you;
They seek your life.

I fear for you, that perhaps I have labored [to the point of exhaustion] over you in vain.

Then I said, “I have labored in vain,
I have spent My strength for nothing and vanity (pride, uselessness);
However My justice is with the Lord,
And My reward is with My God.”

Obey your [spiritual] leaders and submit to them [recognizing their authority over you], for they are keeping watch over your souls and continually guarding your spiritual welfare as those who will give an account [of their stewardship of you]. Let them do this with joy and not with grief and groans, for this would be of no benefit to you.

For Egypt’s help is worthless and good for nothing.
Therefore, I have called her
“Rahab Who Has Been Exterminated.”

“In vain I have punished your people [with the consequences of their disobedience];
They received no insight from correction [and refused to change].
Your [own] sword has devoured your prophets
Like a destroying lion.

and one of you says to them, “Go in peace [with my blessing], [keep] warm and feed yourselves,” but he does not give them the necessities for the body, what good does that do?

and he shall dedicate himself to the Lord for the time of his separation and shall bring a male lamb a year old as a guilt offering; but the previous days will be void and lost, because his separation was defiled.

Then they will reassure you [in regard to the appropriateness of the judgments] when you see their [heinous] conduct and actions, for you will know that I have not done without cause whatever I did to it,” declares the Lord God.

Then they will know [without any doubt] that I am the Lord; I have not said in vain that I would bring this disaster [as punishment] on them.”’

I went up [to Jerusalem] because of a [divine] revelation, and I put before them the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles. But I did so in private before those of reputation, for fear that I might be running or had run [the course of my ministry] in vain.

For this reason, when I could no longer endure the suspense, I sent someone to find out about your faith [how you were holding up under pressure], for fear that somehow the tempter had tempted you and our work [among you] would prove to be ineffective.

Have you suffered so many things and experienced so much all for nothing—if indeed it was all for nothing?

“They will not labor in vain,
Or bear children for disaster;
For they are the descendants of those blessed by the Lord,
And their offspring with them.

Still, I am sending the brothers [on to you], so that our pride in you may not be an empty boast in this case, and so that you may be prepared, just as I told them you would be;

holding out and offering to everyone the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I will have reason to rejoice greatly because I did not run [my race] in vain nor labor without result.

Therefore I do not run without a definite goal; I do not flail around like one beating the air [just shadow boxing].

Therefore, my beloved brothers and sisters, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord [always doing your best and doing more than is needed], being continually aware that your labor [even to the point of exhaustion] in the Lord is not futile nor wasted [it is never without purpose].

For you know, brothers and sisters, that our coming to you has not been ineffective (fruitless, in vain),