Ephesians 4:28 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Let him that stole While he was in his heathen condition of ignorance and vice; steal no more Under a conviction that God is the avenger of all such injuries, 1 Thessalonians 4:6. Stealing, as Macknight justly observes, “is a vice most pernicious to the thief himself. For finding it more easy to supply his necessities by stealing than by working, he falls into a habit of idleness, which, among the lower classes of mankind, is an inlet to all manner of wickedness. Next, the ease with which the thief gets, disposes him to squander thoughtlessly his unjust gain in the gratification of his lusts. Hence such persons are commonly addicted to lewdness and drunkenness.” But rather let him labour In some honest calling; working with his hands Which he formerly employed in stealing; the thing which is good And creditable. The same command the apostle gave to the Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians 3:11-12; that he may have to give to him that needeth May be able even to spare something out of what he gains by industry in his calling, for the relief of such as stand in need of it; and so may be no longer a burden and a nuisance, but a blessing to his neighbours. Thus every one who has sinned in any kind, ought the more zealously to practise the opposite virtue.