30 Bible Verses about Useless Labour
Most Relevant Verses
Your dwelling places in the cities will be ruined, and the worship sites will be wrecked. Your altars will be ruined and demolished. Your idols will be smashed and completely destroyed. Your incense burners will be cut down. Everything you have done will be wiped out.
Is it for Jehovah of Hosts that the peoples labor for the fire? Do the nations weary themselves for vanity?
David thought: I guarded this man's possessions in the desert for nothing! Not one of his possessions was missing. Yet, he paid me back with evil when I was good to him.
Our eyes are still wasting away in looking for our false help. We watch for a nation unable to give salvation.
Your strength will be spent uselessly. Your land will not yield its produce and the trees of the land will not yield their fruit.
This is what Jehovah of Hosts says: The thick walls of Babylon will be leveled, and its high gates will be set on fire. People exhaust themselves for nothing. The nations wear themselves out only to have a fire.
It is vain to work hard for the food you eat by getting up early and going to bed late. Jehovah gives food to those he loves while they sleep.
then this is what I will do to you: I will terrorize you with disease and fever. You will suffer from eye problems and depression. You will plant your crops and get nothing because your enemies will eat them.
The bellows blow fiercely and the fire consumes the lead. The refining goes on in vain, but the wicked are not separated.
You are going to be destroyed! What are you going to do? Why do you dress in scarlet (crimson) and put on gold jewelry? Why do you wear eye shadow? You are making yourself beautiful for nothing. Your lovers despise you. They want to kill you.
I fear for you, that I have labored for you to no purpose (and failed).
I said: I have toiled in vain. I have spent my energy for nothing and vanity. Yet, to be sure, the justice due to me is with Jehovah. My reward is with my God.
Obey those who lead you. Submit to them: for they watch in behalf of your lives and must account for this. Obey them that their work may be a joy and not a burden; that would be without gain for you.
Egypt's help is completely useless. That is why I call her: Rahab, who sits still. (defamatory word for Egypt) (negative connotation)
I have punished your children without results. They did not respond to correction. You killed my prophets like a raging lion.
and one of you says to them: Go in peace, be warmed and filled; and yet you do not give them food and clothing, what good is it?
Once again he will dedicate himself to Jehovah as a Nazirite for the same length of time as before. He must bring a one-year-old male lamb as an offering for guilt. The first time period will not count. He has to start over from when he became unclean.
You will be comforted when you see how they live. Then you will know that everything I have done was done for a reason,' declares the Lord Jehovah.'
Then you will know that I am Jehovah and that the disaster I promised was not an empty threat.'
I went in response to a revelation. I demonstrated to them the way I spread the good news among the people of the nations. I did this privately before them for they have a reputation. I am concerned that by any means I should be running, or had run, in vain.
For this cause, when I could no longer bear it, I inquired about your faith. I feared that the tempter might have tempted you, and our labor would be in vain.
They will not toil in vain or bear children doomed to misfortune. For they will be a people blessed by Jehovah, they and their descendants with them.
But I have sent the brothers that our boasting about you may not be made void in this respect. Even as I said, you may be prepared:
Hold fast to the word of life so I may rejoice in the day of Christ. That way I will not have labored in vain.
I do not run without definite aim (purpose) and I do not fight like a man beating the air.
Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast and unmovable. Always have plenty to do in the work of the Lord, for you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.
