New Living Translation
Proverbs 6:6
6Take a lesson from the ants, you lazybones. Learn from their ways and become wise!
Proverbs 6:6 in other versions
- King James Version (KJV)Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise:
- New International Version (NIV)Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise!
- English Standard Version (ESV)Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.
- New King James Version (NKJV)Go to the ant, you sluggard! Consider her ways and be wise,
Context of Proverbs 6:6
4Don’t put it off; do it now! Don’t rest until you do. 5Save yourself like a gazelle escaping from a hunter, like a bird fleeing from a net. Take a lesson from the ants, you lazybones. Learn from their ways and become wise! 7Though they have no prince or governor or ruler to make them work, 8they labor hard all summer, gathering food for the winter.
Read all of Proverbs 6Proverbs 6:6 word by word
לֵֽךְ־אֶל־נְמָלָ֥ה עָצֵ֑ל רְאֵ֖ה דְרָכֶ֣יהָ וַחֲכָֽם׃Read the interlinear
Words taken from the KJV.
Cross-references for Proverbs 6:6
- Proverbs 1:17If a bird sees a trap being set, it knows to stay away.
- Job 12:7“Just ask the animals, and they will teach you. Ask the birds of the sky, and they will tell you.
- Isaiah 1:3Even an ox knows its owner, and a donkey recognizes its master’s care— but Israel doesn’t know its master. My people don’t recognize my care for them.”
- Matthew 6:26Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are?
- Proverbs 6:9But you, lazybones, how long will you sleep? When will you wake up?
- Proverbs 10:26Lazy people irritate their employers, like vinegar to the teeth or smoke in the eyes.
- Proverbs 13:4Lazy people want much but get little, but those who work hard will prosper.
- Proverbs 15:19A lazy person’s way is blocked with briers, but the path of the upright is an open highway.
- Proverbs 18:9A lazy person is as bad as someone who destroys things.
- Proverbs 19:15Lazy people sleep soundly, but idleness leaves them hungry.
- Proverbs 20:4Those too lazy to plow in the right season will have no food at the harvest.
- Proverbs 21:25Despite their desires, the lazy will come to ruin, for their hands refuse to work.
- Proverbs 22:13The lazy person claims, “There’s a lion out there! If I go outside, I might be killed!”
- Proverbs 24:30I walked by the field of a lazy person, the vineyard of one with no common sense.
- Proverbs 26:13The lazy person claims, “There’s a lion on the road! Yes, I’m sure there’s a lion out there!”
- Matthew 25:26“But the master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy servant! If you knew I harvested crops I didn’t plant and gathered crops I didn’t cultivate,
Commentaries on Proverbs 6:6
- Adam Clarke Bible Commentary · v. 6Go to the ant, thou sluggard - נמלה nemalah, the ant, is a remarkable creature for foresight, industry, and economy. At the proper seasons they collect their food - not in the summer to lay up for the winter; for they sleep during the winter, and eat not; and therefore such hoards would be to them useless; but when the food necessary for them is most plentiful, then they collect it for their consumption in the proper seasons. No insect is more laborious…Read the comment
- Barnes’ Notes on the Bible · v. 6The warning against the wastefulness of the prodigal is followed by a warning as emphatic against the wastefulness of sloth. The point of comparison with the ant is not so much the foresight of the insect as its unwearied activity during the appointed season, rebuking man‘s inaction at a special crisis Proverbs 6:4. In Proverbs 30:25, the storing, provident habit of the ant is noticed.Read the comment
- Matthew Henry Concise Commentary · v. 6-11Verses 6-11 Diligence in business is every man's wisdom and duty; not so much that he may attain worldly wealth, as that he may not be a burden to others, or a scandal to the church. The ants are more diligent than slothful men. We may learn wisdom from the meanest insects, and be shamed by them. Habits of indolence and indulgence grow upon people. Thus life runs to waste; and poverty, though at first at a distance, gradually draws near, like a traveller…Read the comment
- Tyndale Open Study Notes · v. 6-11Lazy people sleep instead of preparing for what they need (see also Proverbs 24:33–34). They are the opposite of self-motivated and hardworking ants. Extra sleep and more slumber sarcastically describe a lazy person’s ambition.Read the comment
- Jamieson–Fausset–Brown Commentary · v. 6-86-8. The improvident sluggards usually want sureties. Hence, such are advised to industry by the ant's example.Read the comment
Topics related to Proverbs 6:6
In the dictionaries
Commentaries on Proverbs 6
- Adam Clarke Bible Commentary
- Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
- Matthew Henry Concise Commentary
- Tyndale Open Study Notes
- Jamieson–Fausset–Brown Commentary
- Rashi on Tanakh
- Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
- John Wesley’s Notes
- Darby Translation Notes
- Geneva Bible Translation Notes
- Kingcomments
- Matthew Henry’s Complete Commentary
- Matthew Henry’s Modern English Commentary
- Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary
- EGW Writings
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