«بِيعْ وِاشْتِرِي وَلَا تِنْكِرِي»

The saying ranks buying and selling above working for wages. Within its outlook, trade lets a person keep charge of their own labor, while hiring oneself out places them under another's direction and may oblige them to carry out tasks they find distasteful.

Its final phrase means entering paid service, not denying or rejecting something. The preference rests on a status-conscious view in which serving others for pay can diminish dignity; that judgment reflects the proverb's social outlook and should not be taken as a general claim that wage labor is demeaning.

The saying offers advice favoring self-directed trade over hired service, framed around avoiding unwelcome demands from an employer. It may be used when weighing ways of earning a living, but its status-conscious assumptions about paid work should be understood as part of the saying rather than endorsed.