Verse Lens · Concise explanation
Proverbs 18:9 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 9. 9He also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
This verse contributes the claim, image, or instruction “He also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster”.
Slack work is kin to vandalism; the LORD's name is a strong tower; wealth is a wall mainly in conceit
This verse is one part of that explanation in Proverbs 18:9–12. The complete section carries the connected meaning and how it should shape life.
Read It With
- Proverbs 18:9–12
Read Proverbs 18:9 with 18:9–12. Read alone, “He also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is…” could turn a compressed observation, warning, comparison, or command into a guarantee or complete policy. The full unit establishes: contributes the claim, image, or instruction “He also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster”; by 18:12, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “Before destruction the heart of man is haughty, and before honour is humility”. Together the unit concentrates on work, diligence, provision, and creaturely limits, friendship, neighbor-love, loyalty, and boundaries, reverent accountability before the LORD within “First Solomonic sentence-saying collection.”
Why This Verse Appears Here
Proverbs 18:9–12 forms a reviewed local cluster inside “First Solomonic sentence-saying collection.” Its lines concentrate on work, diligence, provision, and creaturely limits, friendship, neighbor-love, loyalty, and boundaries, reverent accountability before the LORD, while each sentence proverb retains its own force and the neighboring database unit does not supply its meaning. Within that relationship, this verse contributes the claim, image, or instruction “He also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster”.
What Remains True
Diligent, skillful work is normally fruitful, yet outcomes also depend on health, opportunity, justice, weather, and other conditions beyond one worker's control. In Proverbs 18:9, that bounded truth is expressed through “He also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is…,” not through a promise detached from its literary form.
Continue in Context
Read the complete section for the connected explanation and how it should shape life. This verse is a doorway into that passage, not a saying that stands alone.
Read Proverbs 18:9–12 — Work, diligence, provision, and creaturely limits — He also that is slothful in his work is brother to him…Sources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? probable
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact displayed KJV words, canonical order, paragraph flags, supplied-word markup, and complete unit coverage.
Exact location: Proverbs 18:9–12, repository-pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Proverbs
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording and morphology used only for the exact unit's lexical, grammatical, parallel, superscription, number-saying, and acrostic questions.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Prov.xml, OSIS 18:9-18:12
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: Proverbs with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006
Supports: Verse-attached textual, lexical, grammatical, syntactic, parallelism, and older-English controls for the exact range.
Exact location: NET Bible Proverbs PDF, printed pp. 1133-1136, exact tc/tn/sn entries attached to 18:9–12
Open source ↗