Proverbs 19.24 says, a slothful man hideth his hand in his bosom, and will not so much as bring it to his mouth again. This is hyperbolic in most instances. A slothful man doesn't usually, literally hide his hand, and usually isn't so lazy that he won't even lift a finger to feed himself. But it actually reaches that point in extreme cases, and we'll come back to that in our next Proverb Devotional. But hyperbole is a tool used in language. It's not a lie because the speaker assumes that the person reading or listening has common sense and can understand that the statement isn't intended to be taken literally. Although, again, that doesn't mean it would never be literally true in some cases. For example, there's a man that some include as a so-called church father. His name is Origen. He played a huge role in the corruption of the Alexandrian manuscripts that are found in the Vatican Codex, which is the corrupt text used to produce our corrupt new versions these days, the NIV, ESV, Legacy Standard, et cetera. But Origen didn't only hack away at God's words in those manuscripts, he actually castrated himself. Why? Well, origin lacked common sense and was probably devil-possessed on top of that. So when he read the words of Jesus in Mark 9, 43, where Jesus said, and if thy hand offend thee, cut it off. It is better for thee to enter into life maimed than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched, end quote. Origin evidently had a different member of his body that caused him to sin or caused great temptation to sin or at least that's where origin put the blame and applied the literal interpretation of the Bible to a text that is obviously hyperbole and snip snip Don't be like origin. Our proverb begins by saying, a slothful man hideth his hand in his bosom. That is seldom a literal fact, but think of men and some women who refuse to get a job and they sit at home in their parents' basement or in government housing or just mooching off of someone else. They sit there playing video games, playing on the internet, doing other things with their hands, anything except work. They hide their hands from the work. So you can see the point of this proverb. The slothful man keeps his hands hidden from labor. The slothful man looks for someone who will accommodate them and enable them to provide basic needs. The slothful man then becomes like a parasite living off of their host. And just to be clear, again, there are many women who are the same way. Some just stay in their parents' home. They never get a job, never get married. They spend a lifetime mooching. Some get married and then they use the I'm a homemaker excuse for doing nothing, but the problem is their husbands will tell you that they're not homemakers. They don't cook, don't clean, don't sew. Their husbands hire out such work if they can afford it or they do it themselves and have to make the kids do extra chores to keep up while wifey sits there watching soap operas and movies, playing on the internet, talking on the phone, etc. But such people are not happy and are almost always downright miserable. And as you consider proverbs like these, you're hopefully getting the point. Laziness is a sinful condition that can turn you into a useless bum. Such a person is rarely a professing Christian, thankfully. But when they are, they need to be told just how wicked their laziness is. This isn't a word for the injured, the ill, or infirm. If you live at home and you work and help pay the bills and it's an arrangement like that, that's not what we're talking about here. But if you fall into this description that we have been talking about, we urge you to repent. If you know someone else like this, urge them to repent. Pray for people like this. And if you ever start to become a lazy bum, repent immediately. You only have so much time on earth, another than a day off each week to rest or the occasional vacation getaway. Never let yourself waste precious time that can be spent working as unto the Lord.