30 Bible Verses about Useless Labour

If I am wicked, why then shall I toil in vain?

In all your provinces the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate that your altars may be laid waste and condemned, and your idols shall be destroyed and shall cease, and your images of the sun shall be cut down, and your works shall be abolished.

Is this not of the LORD of the hosts? Therefore the peoples shall labour for the fire, and the Gentiles shall weary themselves in vain.

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 unto him, and he has returned unto me evil for good.

Ain As for us, our eyes have failed in seeking our vain help; in our watching we have watched for people that cannot save us.

And your strength shall be spent in vain; for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits.

Thus hath the LORD of the hosts said; The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly cast down, and her high gates shall be burned with fire; and peoples and nations shall labour in vain in the fire to save her, and they shall become weary.

It is vain for you to rise up early, to come home late, to eat the bread of sorrows, because he shall give his beloved sleep.

I also will do this unto you: I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague that shall consume the eyes and torment the soul, and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.

Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird.

The bellows are burned; the lead is consumed of the fire; the founder melts in vain; for the wicked are not plucked away.

And thou who art destroyed, what wilt thou do? Though thou clothe thyself with crimson, though thou deck thee with ornaments of gold, though thou paint thy eyes with antimony, in vain shalt thou make thyself fair; thy lovers will despise thee; they will seek thy life.

I am afraid for you, lest I have bestowed labour upon you in vain.

But I said, I have laboured in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing, and in vain; yet surely my judgment is before the LORD and my recompense with my God.

Listen to your pastors, and do not resist them, for they watch for your souls as those that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief; for that is unprofitable for you.

For the Egyptians shall help in vain and to no purpose; therefore I have cried out concerning this that your strength should be to sit still.

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

and one of you says unto them, Depart in peace; be ye warmed and filled; but ye do not give them those things which are needful for the body; what shall it profit them?

And they shall consecrate unto the LORD the days of their Nazariteship and shall bring a lamb of the first year for their guilt; but the days that were before shall be lost because their Nazariteship was defiled.

And they shall comfort you when ye see their ways and their doings and ye shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in her, said the Lord GOD.

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

But I went up by revelation and communicated unto them the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to those who seemed to be of repute, to not run, or have run, in vain.

For this cause I, also, not waiting any longer, have sent to know your faith, lest by some means the tempter has tempted you and our labour is in vain.

Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain.

They shall not labour in vain, nor give birth with fear; for their births are the seed of the blessed of the LORD, and their offspring shall be with them.

Yet I have sent the brethren lest our glorying of you should be in vain in this behalf; that, as I said, ye may be ready,

holding fast the word of life, that I may glory in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain.

I therefore so run, not as unto an uncertain thing; so I fight, not as one that beats the air;

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.

For you yourselves, brethren, know that our entrance unto you was not vain,