If you love sleep, you will end in poverty. Keep your eyes open, and there will be plenty to eat!
Parallel translations
- WEB Don’t love sleep, lest you come to poverty. Open your eyes, and you shall be satisfied with bread.
- KJV Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty; open thine eyes, and thou shalt be satisfied with bread.
- BSB Do not love sleep, or you will grow poor; open your eyes, and you will have plenty of food.
- NKJV Do not love sleep, lest you come to poverty; Open your eyes, and you will be satisfied with bread.
- NASB Do not love sleep, or you will become poor; Open your eyes, and you will be satisfied with food.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Loving sleep leads to poverty, but diligence brings provision. It matters as a call to industriousness rather than laziness.
Overview
This is a classic wisdom contrast between the sluggard and the diligent worker (Proverbs 6:9-11). Excessive sleep symbolizes a slothful life that ends in want, while alert labor is rewarded with bread. The principle commends faithful stewardship of time and energy as part of a godly, ordered life.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Rom 12:11not lagging in diligence; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord;
- Prov 19:15Slothfulness casts into a deep sleep. The idle soul shall suffer hunger.
- Prov 10:4He becomes poor who works with a lazy hand, but the hand of the diligent brings wealth.
- Prov 12:11He who tills his land shall have plenty of bread, but he who chases fantasies is void of understanding.
- Rom 13:11Do this, knowing the time, that it is already time for you to awaken out of sleep, for salvation is now nearer to us than when we first believed.
- Jonah 1:6So the ship master came to him, and said to him, “What do you mean, sleeper? Arise, call on your God! Maybe your God will notice us, so that we won’t perish.”
- 2 Th 3:10For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: “If anyone will not work, don’t let him eat.”
- Prov 13:4The soul of the sluggard desires, and has nothing, but the desire of the diligent shall be fully satisfied.
- Eph 5:14Therefore he says, “Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
- Prov 6:9–11How long will you sleep, sluggard? When will you arise out of your sleep?
- Prov 24:30–34I went by the field of the sluggard, by the vineyard of the man void of understanding;
- 1 Cor 15:34Wake up righteously, and don’t sin, for some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Wisdom personified, with God before creation and the agent of all things, anticipates Christ 'in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom' — the wisdom of God made flesh.
How Proverbs 20:13 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.