Don't Wear Yourself Out
Do not wear yourself out to get rich; be wise enough to restrain yourself. Proverbs 23:4 · Berean Standard Bible
Don't exhaust yourself chasing money and wealth—be smart enough to know when to stop and pull back.
The young people hearing this lived in a culture where getting ahead was tempting. Someone could work themselves to exhaustion trying to build wealth, forgetting that endless striving leads nowhere good.
A father or wise teacher speaking to a young person
This reflects the biblical conviction that life is about more than accumulation. Even in the Old Testament, we see wisdom often calls people away from the rat race toward something deeper and more lasting.
Do not exhaust yourself in the relentless pursuit of wealth; wisdom requires knowing when to cease striving and accept limits.
The verb 'wear yourself out' (יגע, yaga) carries connotations of weariness unto ineffectiveness, suggesting not temporary exertion but soul-grinding depletion. This addressed Israelite merchants and entrepreneurs who faced genuine economic pressures, yet the sage insists that the pursuit of security through wealth-accumulation ultimately betrays a fundamental mistrust of divine providence.
The wisdom teacher, echoing concerns articulated across wisdom literature from Qohelet's philosophical investigations to Ben Sira's later Hellenistic refinements of traditional teaching.
This verse prefigures Jesus's teaching on mammon and the impossibility of serving both God and wealth—establishing that economic ambition, when unchecked, functions as idolatry, a competing allegiance that fragments human wholeness before God.
2and put a knife to your throat if you possess a great appetite.
3Do not crave his delicacies, for that food is deceptive.
4Do not wear yourself out to get rich; be wise enough to restrain yourself.
5When you glance at wealth, it disappears, for it makes wings for itself and flies like an eagle to the sky.
6Do not eat the bread of a stingy man, and do not crave his delicacies;
Read all of Proverbs 23 — Do not wear yourself out to get rich. Have the wisdom to show restraint. Riches sprout wings and fly away like an eagle.
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