But you, lazybones, how long will you sleep? When will you wake up?
Parallel translations
- WEB How long will you sleep, sluggard? When will you arise out of your sleep?
- KJV How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep?
- BSB How long will you lie there, O slacker? When will you get up from your sleep?
- NKJV How long will you slumber, O sluggard? When will you rise from your sleep?
- NASB How long will you lie down, you lazy one? When will you arise from your sleep?
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
The father confronts the sluggard's endless drowsiness with a pointed question. Laziness must be roused to action.
Overview
With a sharp rhetorical question, Solomon calls the sluggard to wake from his habitual rest. The repetition exposes how laziness lulls a person into delay and inaction. The verse presses the reader to honest self-examination about wasted time and unused opportunity.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- Prov 24:33–34a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep;
- Ps 94:8Consider, you senseless among the people; you fools, when will you be wise?
- Jer 4:14Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness, that you may be saved. How long shall your evil thoughts lodge within you?
- Eph 5:14Therefore he says, “Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
- Prov 1:22“How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? How long will mockers delight themselves in mockery, and fools hate knowledge?
- 1 Th 5:2–7For you yourselves know well that the day of the Lord comes like a thief in the night.
- 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.
- John 1:6There came a man, sent from God, whose name was John.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Commentaries & study tools
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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 6:9 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.