And behold, an old man was coming from his work in the field at evening. The man was from the hill country of Ephraim, and he was sojourning in Gibeah. The men of the place were Benjaminites.
Man goes out to his work and to his labor until the evening.
In those days, when there was no king in Israel, a certain Levite was sojourning in the remote parts of the hill country of Ephraim, who took to himself a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah.
For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.
and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.
Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.
Sweet is the sleep of a laborer, whether he eats little or much, but the full stomach of the rich will not let him sleep.
And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with.
Prepare your work outside; get everything ready for yourself in the field, and after that build your house.
In all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty.
Wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it.
You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands; you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you.
So they passed on and went their way. And the sun went down on them near Gibeah, which belongs to Benjamin,
By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Unless otherwise indicated, all content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Contact me: openbibleinfo (at) gmail.com.