‘Because you say I am rich, and have amassed wealth, and have need of nothing, and do not know that you are a wretch, a thing of misery, and poor and blind and naked.'
‘Wretched' and ‘miserable' both have the article before them suggesting they be read as nouns, thus ‘a wretched one, a thing of misery'.
Laodicea was a wealthy town with wealthy inhabitants and it was extremely proud of its wealth. When it was destroyed by an earthquake in 60 AD it proudly rejected all help from Rome and rebuilt itself from its own resources. It was famed for its black woollen garments, made from the wool of its equally famed black sheep, and there was a famous medical school in its vicinity where Phrygian stone was ground to make collyrium (Gk. ‘kollyrion' as here - which mixed with oil was used for making an eye salve). Its inhabitants therefore had a very high opinion of themselves and were inordinately proud. Thus Jesus warns them that their view of themselves is really inadequate, for while they admire themselves because of their wealth, spiritually they are really like the homeless wretch in the street, a thing of misery, and poor, blind and unclothed into the bargain. Spiritually they are have-nothings.
The idea of nakedness was regularly used in the Old Testament to depict the sorry state of men before God because of their sinfulness (see Isaiah 47:3; Lamentations 1:8; Hosea 2:3; Jeremiah 13:25-26; Nahum 3:5; Genesis 3:7). For blindness see Isaiah 59:10; Zephaniah 1:17; Matthew 23:17; Matthew 23:19; Joh 12:40; 2 Corinthians 3:14; 2 Corinthians 4:4; Eph 4:18; 2 Peter 1:9. Their whole condition is described in Jeremiah 5:27-29. Spiritually they are bare, empty and unseeing.
This church parallels the final stage in the downfall of Israel and Judah. They too had become proud, declaring their riches (Hosea 12:8), yet poor (Ezekiel 22:18), blind (Isaiah 59:10), and naked (Lamentations 1:8; Ezekiel 16:39). They were counselled to buy what is good (Isaiah 55:2). Failing to do this Judah came to its final downfall. (see Introduction). And this is the danger at Laodicea.