Cross References → Genesis 3:17

For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance is like the wickedness of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He has rejected you as king.” Then Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned; I have transgressed the LORD’s commandment and your instructions, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.

‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ But the man was speechless.

‘You wicked, lazy servant!’ replied his master. ‘You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed. Then you should have deposited my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received it back with interest. ... Then the King will answer, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for Me.’

His master replied, ‘You wicked servant, I will judge you by your own words. So you knew that I am a harsh man, withdrawing what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow?

Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.

When the woman saw that the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eyes, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom, she took the fruit and ate it. She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate it. ... “Who told you that you were naked?” asked the LORD God. “Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”

And the LORD God commanded him, “You may eat freely from every tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.”

but this is what I commanded them: Obey Me, and I will be your God, and you will be My people. You must walk in all the ways I have commanded you, so that it may go well with you. Yet they did not listen or incline their ear, but they followed the stubborn inclinations of their own evil hearts. They went backward and not forward.

And he named him Noah, saying, “May this one comfort us in the labor and toil of our hands caused by the ground that the LORD has cursed.”

In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for bread to eat—for He gives sleep to His beloved.

“Futility of futilities,” says the Teacher, “futility of futilities! Everything is futile!” What does a man gain from all his labor, at which he toils under the sun? ... And I set my mind to seek and explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a heavy burden God has laid upon the sons of men to occupy them! I have seen all the things that are done under the sun, and have found them all to be futile, a pursuit of the wind.

Yet when I considered all the works that my hands had accomplished and what I had toiled to achieve, I found everything to be futile, a pursuit of the wind; there was nothing to be gained under the sun. ... So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. For everything is futile and a pursuit of the wind.

The earth is defiled by its people; they have transgressed the laws; they have overstepped the decrees and broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore a curse has consumed the earth, and its inhabitants must bear the guilt; the earth’s dwellers have been burned, and only a few survive.

For the creation was subjected to futility, not by its own will, but because of the One who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until the present time.

For distress does not spring from the dust, and trouble does not sprout from the ground. Yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward.

“Man, who is born of woman, is short of days and full of trouble.

How often is the lamp of the wicked put out? Does disaster come upon them? Does God, in His anger, apportion destruction?

For we are consumed by Your anger and terrified by Your wrath. You have set our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your presence. For all our days decline in Your fury; we finish our years with a sigh.

For what does a man get for all the toil and striving with which he labors under the sun? Indeed, all his days are filled with grief, and his task is sorrowful; even at night, his mind does not rest. This too is futile.

Moreover, all his days he eats in darkness, with much sorrow, sickness, and anger.

I have told you these things so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take courage; I have overcome the world!”