Luke 10:7
5 Whenever you enter a house, first say, ‘May peace be on this house!’ 6 And if a peace-loving person is there, your peace will remain on him, but if not, it will return to you. 7 Stay in that same house, eating and drinking what they give you, for the worker deserves his pay. Do not move around from house to house. 8 Whenever you enter a town and the people welcome you, eat what is set before you. 9 Heal the sick in that town and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come upon you!’ 10 But whenever you enter a town and the people do not welcome you, go into its streets and say, 11 ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet we wipe off against you. Nevertheless know this: The kingdom of God has come.’ 12 I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town!
Bava Metzia 91b
Babylonian TalmudThe mishna teaches that Rabbi Yosei, son of Rabbi Yehuda, says: A laborer may not eat unless he performs labor with his hands and with his feet. The Gemara asks: What is the reasoning of Rabbi Yosei, son of Rabbi Yehuda? The Gemara explains: This halakha is like that of a threshing ox; just as one is not required to let an ox feed unless it is performing labor with its hands and with its feet, as it uses all four of its legs to thresh, so too a laborer is not entitled to eat unless he is performing labor with his hands and with his feet.
Notes and References
"... 'The workman is worthy of his hire' is a saying attributed to Jesus in Luke (10:7) and (in a slightly different form) in Matthew (10:10); It is quoted, without attribution, in 1 Timothy 5:18 and Didache 13:2: and, as we shall see, it appears to be alluded to elsewhere in the N.T. It is one of those sayings - and there are many in the gospels - which depend for their interest upon the use to which they are put. By themselves, they have the generality - one might say 1he banality - of simple folk wisdom. They are propositions which are memorable only because they give succinct expression to the accumulated wisdom of ages. They do not tell us anything which we did not (on reflection) know already. They spring to life only when authoritatively applied to some novel situation. Jesus was fond of such aphorisms, some of which we can identify as proverbs already in circulation, some of which he may have coined himself. Once imbued with his authority and given a new range of application they quickly took on new life. We still use them to-day, and apply them indiscrimina1ely to any situation they seem to fit ..."
Harvey, A. E. "The Workman is Worthy of His Hire" Fortunes of a Proverb in the Early Chuch (pp. 209-211) Brill, 1982