Occupation; by implication, profit, pains
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This Greek noun can refer to work, business, gain from an activity or effort directed toward a task. Acts 16:16 describes the income a slave girl's divination brings to her owners, and verse 19 records their reaction when that prospect disappears.
Reader summary
Full entry for ἐργασία (G2039) · Open the biblical lexicon
This Greek noun can refer to work, business, gain from an activity or effort directed toward a task. Acts 16:16 describes the income a slave girl's divination brings to her owners, and verse 19 records their reaction when that prospect disappears.
The BSB source-word alignment has 6 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include business (2), [the] practice (1), every effort (1), income (1), making money (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Luke 12:58. Its strongest book concentrations include Acts (4), Ephesians (1), Luke (1).
This Greek noun can refer to work, business, gain from an activity or effort directed toward a task. Acts 16:16 describes the income a slave girl's divination brings to her owners, and verse 19 records their reaction when that prospect disappears. Acts 19:24-25 concerns the business and prosperity connected with Demetrius's silver shrines. These passages expose particular economic interests; they do not make the noun a declaration that every trade or form of earnings is evil.
Ephesians 4:19 uses the noun in an expression about the practice of impurity. The moral description comes from what is being practiced and the surrounding argument. Luke 12:58 uses an expression for making an effort to reconcile with an adversary while on the way to a magistrate. A commercial business, harmful practice and urgent effort are distinct uses to explain in their own sentences. Ask what work is done, who benefits, who is harmed and what response the passage calls for, without treating profit or activity alone as proof of either righteousness or guilt.
Income from an enslaved girl's divination, shrine-making business, the practice of impurity and effort toward reconciliation distinguish economic benefit, conduct and purposeful action.
One day as we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl with a spirit of divination, who earned a large income for her masters by fortune-telling.
The girl's activity brings substantial income to her owners. The verse identifies both her enslaved condition and who receives the gain, which should remain visible rather than treating the scene as an ordinary commercial transaction.
When the girl’s owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them before the authorities in the marketplace.
The owners react when their hope of profit is gone, seizing Paul and Silas before the authorities. Their economic motive is stated by the narrative and must not be replaced by their later public accusation.
It began with a silversmith named Demetrius who made silver shrines of Artemis, bringing much business to the craftsmen.
Demetrius's manufacture of silver shrines brings business to the craftsmen. The following speech explains his concern about livelihood and the standing of Artemis, tying the disturbance to this particular trade.
Demetrius assembled the craftsmen, along with the workmen in related trades. “Men,” he said, “you know that this business is our source of prosperity.
Demetrius tells the assembled workers that their prosperity comes from the business. His stated interest helps explain the speech but does not establish that every worker or all economic activity shares the same moral problem.
Having lost all sense of shame, they have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity, with a craving for more.
The noun appears within a description of practicing impurity and craving more. The following contrast concerns knowing Christ, so the verse addresses a manner of conduct rather than defining all work as corrupt.
Make every effort to reconcile with your adversary while you are on your way to the magistrate. Otherwise, he may drag you off to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and the officer may throw you into prison.
Jesus urges effort toward reconciliation before the dispute reaches judgment. The illustration's urgency belongs to His appeal to discern and judge rightly; it does not settle every modern legal case or require an unsafe private encounter.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. Work undertaken for profit or practical gain; labor as gainful occupation or trade activity.
Work undertaken for profit or practical gain; labor as gainful occupation or trade activity.
(ἔργον), [in LXX for מְלָאכָה, עֲבֹדָה, etc. ;]
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
6 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
working, activity, trade, performance
Read verseworking, activity, trade, performance
Read verseworking, activity, trade, performance
Read verseworking, activity, trade, performance
Read verseworking, activity, trade, performance
Read verseworking, activity, trade, performance
Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 2 case and number patterns. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 1 selected witness from 6 lexical occurrence verses.
ἐργασία is built from this root:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Acts 16:16 names a slave girl whose divination produces income for her owners. Paul commands the spirit to leave in the name of Jesus Christ, and the narrative then describes the owners' lost hope of profit. Their seizure of Paul and Silas is connected to that loss before their complaint is presented to the magistrates. Reading the sequence prevents the public charge from concealing the economic interest the narrator has already identified.
The passage should not make the girl disappear behind a lesson about money, nor should it make every livelihood morally suspect. Acts 18:3 describes Paul's ordinary work with Aquila and Priscilla, and Ephesians 4:28 calls for useful work that makes sharing possible. The issue is what an activity does and how people are treated. A teaching application can examine exploitative incentives and call for honest labor without equating wealth with God's favor or poverty with failure.
Acts.16.19
The noun can name business, its gain, the carrying out of an activity or effort in an idiomatic expression. Its moral value comes from the specified activity and setting. Similar English words such as work and profit should not flatten those distinctions.
Exodus 20:9-10 places work alongside commanded rest, and Leviticus 19:13 forbids defrauding a neighbor and withholding a worker's wages. These provide thematic comparisons for labor and the treatment of people. They help frame Acts' particular exploitative interests without turning the Greek noun into a universal condemnation of earning a living.