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Read the Bible

Good News Translation

Proverbs 20:13

If you spend your time sleeping, you will be poor. Keep busy and you will have plenty to eat.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Idleness;   Industry;   Poor;   Poverty;   Thompson Chain Reference - Business Life;   Indolent Sleep;   Industry;   Sleep;   Sleep-Wakefulness;   Virtues;   Work, Physical;   The Topic Concordance - Laziness;   Poverty;   Satisfaction;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Idleness and Sloth;   Poor, the;  

Dictionaries:

- Bridgeway Bible Dictionary - Love;   Charles Buck Theological Dictionary - Pardon;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Proverbs, Book of;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Poor;   Poverty;   The Jewish Encyclopedia - Menander;   Shirah, Pereḳ (Pirḳe);  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
Don’t love sleep, or you will become poor;open your eyes, and you’ll have enough to eat.
Hebrew Names Version
Don't love sleep, lest you come to poverty; Open your eyes, and you shall be satisfied with bread.
King James Version
Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty; open thine eyes, and thou shalt be satisfied with bread.
English Standard Version
Love not sleep, lest you come to poverty; open your eyes, and you will have plenty of bread.
New American Standard Bible
Do not love sleep, or you will become poor; Open your eyes, and you will be satisfied with food.
New Century Version
If you love to sleep, you will be poor. If you stay awake, you will have plenty of food.
Amplified Bible
Do not love [excessive] sleep, or you will become poor; Open your eyes [so that you can do your work] and you will be satisfied with bread.
World English Bible
Don't love sleep, lest you come to poverty; Open your eyes, and you shall be satisfied with bread.
Geneva Bible (1587)
Loue not sleepe least thou come vnto pouertie: open thine eyes, and thou shalt be satisfied with bread.
Legacy Standard Bible
Do not love sleep, lest you become poor;Open your eyes, and you will be satisfied with food.
Berean Standard Bible
Do not love sleep, or you will grow poor; open your eyes, and you will have plenty of food.
Contemporary English Version
If you sleep all the time, you will starve; if you get up and work, you will have enough food.
Complete Jewish Bible
If you love sleep, you will become poor; keep your eyes open, and you'll have plenty of food.
Darby Translation
Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty; open thine eyes, [and] thou shalt be satisfied with bread.
Easy-to-Read Version
If you love to sleep, you will become poor. Use your time working and you will have plenty to eat.
George Lamsa Translation
Love not sleep test you come to poverty; open your eyes and you shall be satisfied with bread.
Lexham English Bible
Do not love sleep, lest you become poor; open your eyes and have plenty bread.
Literal Translation
Do not love sleep, lest you become poor; open your eyes, be satisfied with bread.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Delyte not thou in slepe, lest thou come vnto pouerte: but ope thine eyes, & thou shalt haue bred ynough.
American Standard Version
Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty; Open thine eyes, and thou shalt be satisfied with bread.
Bible in Basic English
Do not be a lover of sleep, or you will become poor: keep your eyes open, and you will have bread enough.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty; open thine eyes, and thou shalt have bread in plenty.
King James Version (1611)
Loue not sleepe, lest thou come to pouertie: open thine eyes, and thou shalt be satisfied with bread.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
Loue not sleepe, lest thou come vnto pouertie: but open thyne eyes, that thou mayest haue bread inough.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
Love not to speak ill, lest thou be cut off: open thine eyes, and be filled with bread.
English Revised Version
Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty; open thine eyes, and thou shalt be satisfied with bread.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Nyle thou loue sleep, lest nedynesse oppresse thee; opene thin iyen, and be thou fillid with looues.
Update Bible Version
Don't love sleep, or else you will come to poverty; Open your eyes, [and] you shall be satisfied with bread.
Webster's Bible Translation
Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty; open thy eyes, [and] thou shalt be satisfied with bread.
New English Translation
Do not love sleep, lest you become impoverished; open your eyes so that you might be satisfied with food.
New King James Version
Do not love sleep, lest you come to poverty; Open your eyes, and you will be satisfied with bread.
New Living Translation
If you love sleep, you will end in poverty. Keep your eyes open, and there will be plenty to eat!
New Life Bible
Do not love sleep, or you will become poor. Open your eyes, and you will be filled with food.
New Revised Standard
Do not love sleep, or else you will come to poverty; open your eyes, and you will have plenty of bread.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Do not love sleep, lest thou come to poverty, open thine eyes, be satisfied with bread.
Douay-Rheims Bible
Love not sleep, lest poverty oppress thee: open thy eyes, and be filled with bread.
Revised Standard Version
Love not sleep, lest you come to poverty; open your eyes, and you will have plenty of bread.
Young's Literal Translation
Love not sleep, lest thou become poor, Open thine eyes -- be satisfied [with] bread.
THE MESSAGE
Don't be too fond of sleep; you'll end up in the poorhouse. Wake up and get up; then there'll be food on the table.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
Do not love sleep, or you will become poor; Open your eyes, and you will be satisfied with food.

Contextual Overview

13 If you spend your time sleeping, you will be poor. Keep busy and you will have plenty to eat.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Love: Proverbs 6:9-11, Proverbs 10:4, Proverbs 12:11, Proverbs 13:4, Proverbs 19:15, Proverbs 24:30-34, Romans 12:11, 2 Thessalonians 3:10

open: Jonah 1:6, Romans 13:11, 1 Corinthians 15:34, Ephesians 5:14

Cross-References

Genesis 12:1
The Lord said to Abram, "Leave your country, your relatives, and your father's home, and go to a land that I am going to show you.
Genesis 12:9
Then he moved on from place to place, going toward the southern part of Canaan.
Genesis 20:3
One night God appeared to him in a dream and said, "You are going to die, because you have taken this woman; she is already married."
Genesis 20:5
Abraham himself said that she was his sister, and she said the same thing. I did this with a clear conscience, and I have done no wrong."
Genesis 20:11
Abraham answered, "I thought that there would be no one here who has reverence for God and that they would kill me to get my wife.
1 Samuel 23:21
Saul answered, "May the Lord bless you for being so kind to me!
Psalms 64:5
They encourage each other in their evil plots; they talk about where they will place their traps. "No one can see them," they say.
Acts 5:9
So Peter said to her, "Why did you and your husband decide to put the Lord's Spirit to the test? The men who buried your husband are at the door right now, and they will carry you out too!"
Hebrews 11:8
It was faith that made Abraham obey when God called him to go out to a country which God had promised to give him. He left his own country without knowing where he was going.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty,.... Sleep is a very great natural blessing; it is a gift of God, what nature requires, and is desirable; it is to be loved, though not immoderately; it is sweet to a man, and what he should be thankful for; yet should not indulge himself in to the neglect of the proper business of life; nor to be used but at the proper time for it; for the eye is made for sight, and not for sleep only, as Aben Ezra observes, connecting the words with the preceding; and therefore should not be kept shut and inattentive to business, which must necessarily end in poverty and want; see Proverbs 6:9; and so spiritual sleep and slothfulness bring on a spiritual poverty in the souls of men, both as to the exercise of grace and the performance of duty;

open thine eyes, [and] thou shall be satisfied with bread; that is, open thine eyes from sleep, awake and keep so, and be sedulous and industrious in the business of thy calling; so shalt thou have a sufficiency of food for thyself and family; see Proverbs 12:11. It may be applied to awaking out of sleep in a spiritual sense, and to a diligent attendance to duty and the use of means, whereby the souls of men come to be satisfied with the goodness of the Lord, and the fatness of his house; see Ephesians 5:14.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Open thine eyes - Be vigilant and active. That is the secret of prosperity.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Proverbs 20:13. Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty — Sleep, indescribable in its nature, is an indescribable blessing; but how often is it turned into a curse! It is like food; a certain measure of it restores and invigorates exhausted nature; more than that oppresses and destroys life. A lover of sleep is a paltry, insignificant character.


 
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