Amos 5:12

In his day you shall give him his wages, neither shall the sun go down on it; for he is poor and sets his heart on it; lest he cry against you to Yahweh, and it be sin to you.

They say continually to those who despise me, ‘Yahweh has said, “You will have peace;” ’ and to everyone who walks in the stubbornness of his own heart they say, ‘No evil will come on you.’

Yahweh said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries to me from the ground.

In the course of those many days, the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up to God because of the bondage.

“ ‘You shall not oppress your neighbor, nor rob him. “ ‘The wages of a hired servant shall not remain with you all night until the morning.

The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “There is yet one man by whom we may inquire of Yahweh, Micaiah the son of Imlah; but I hate him, for he does not prophesy good concerning me, but evil.” Jehoshaphat said, “Don’t let the king say so.”

You, Solomon my son, know the God of your father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind; for Yahweh searches all hearts, and understands all the imaginations of the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever.

so that they caused the cry of the poor to come to him. He heard the cry of the afflicted.

Turn my eyes away from looking at worthless things. Revive me in your ways.

Her husband is respected in the gates, when he sits among the elders of the land.

“For from their least even to their greatest, everyone is given to covetousness. From the prophet even to the priest, everyone deals falsely.

“You shall not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits.

You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality. You shall not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and perverts the words of the righteous.

Now it is true that I am a near kinsman. However, there is a kinsman nearer than I.

You, Ezra, according to the wisdom of your God that is in your hand, appoint magistrates and judges, who may judge all the people who are beyond the River, who all know the laws of your God; and teach him who doesn’t know them.

A scoffer doesn’t love to be reproved; he will not go to the wise.

for they call themselves citizens of the holy city, and rely on the God of Israel; Yahweh of Armies is his name.

“I have struck your children in vain. They received no correction. Your own sword has devoured your prophets, like a destroying lion.

They have grown fat. They shine; yes, they excel in deeds of wickedness. They don’t plead the cause, the cause of the fatherless, that they may prosper; and they don’t defend the rights of the needy.

Don’t trust in lying words, saying, ‘Yahweh’s temple, Yahweh’s temple, Yahweh’s temple, are these.’

For I have heard the defaming of many, “Terror on every side! Denounce, and we will denounce him!” say all my familiar friends, those who watch for my fall. “Perhaps he will be persuaded, and we will prevail against him, and we will take our revenge on him.”

“Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, and his rooms by injustice; who uses his neighbor’s service without wages, and doesn’t give him his hire;

In the prophets of Jerusalem I have also seen a horrible thing: they commit adultery and walk in lies. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one returns from his wickedness. They have all become to me as Sodom, and its inhabitants as Gomorrah.”

They trample on the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and deny justice to the oppressed; and a man and his father use the same maiden, to profane my holy name;

Yahweh says concerning the prophets who lead my people astray; for those who feed their teeth, they proclaim, “Peace!” and whoever doesn’t provide for their mouths, they prepare war against him:

Don’t oppress the widow, nor the fatherless, the foreigner, nor the poor; and let none of you devise evil against his brother in your heart.’

Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven. For that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

But you denied the Holy and Righteous One and asked for a murderer to be granted to you,

saying, “Didn’t we strictly command you not to teach in this name? Behold, you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and intend to bring this man’s blood on us.”

Indeed you bear the name of a Jew, rest on the law, glory in God,

As Isaiah has said before, “Unless the Lord of Armies had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom, and would have been made like Gomorrah.”

So then, have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?

Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the bed be undefiled; but God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.

Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

Take, brothers, for an example of suffering and of perseverance, the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.

If the man doesn’t want to take his brother’s wife, then his brother’s wife shall go up to the gate to the elders, and say, “My husband’s brother refuses to raise up to his brother a name in Israel. He will not perform the duty of a husband’s brother to me.”

He said, “I have been very jealous for Yahweh, the God of Armies; for the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.”

David said, “Of these, twenty-four thousand were to oversee the work of Yahweh’s house, six thousand were officers and judges,

but they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets, until Yahweh’s wrath arose against his people, until there was no remedy.

You have sent widows away empty, and the arms of the fatherless have been broken.

he who doesn’t lend out his money for usury, nor take a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things shall never be shaken.

They kill the widow and the alien, and murder the fatherless.

Whoever oppresses the poor for his own increase and whoever gives to the rich, both come to poverty.

Yahweh will enter into judgment with the elders of his people and their leaders: “It is you who have eaten up the vineyard. The plunder of the poor is in your houses.

“All their wickedness is in Gilgal; for there I hated them. Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of my house! I will love them no more. All their princes are rebels.

Her rich men are full of violence, her inhabitants speak lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their speech.

Yet you say, ‘Why?’ Because Yahweh has been witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously, though she is your companion, and the wife of your covenant.

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, like a hen gathers her own brood under her wings, and you refused!

who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and drove us out, and don’t please God, and are contrary to all men,

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some have been led astray from the faith in their greed, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

whose mouths must be stopped: men who overthrow whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for dishonest gain’s sake.

There is no creature that is hidden from his sight, but all things are naked and laid open before the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.

Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, exercising the oversight, not under compulsion, but voluntarily, not for dishonest gain, but willingly;

But for the cowardly, unbelieving, sinners, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their part is in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

Moreover you shall provide out of all the people able men which fear God: men of truth, hating unjust gain; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens.

Moses was very angry, and said to Yahweh, “Don’t respect their offering. I have not taken one donkey from them, neither have I hurt one of them.”

However Sisera fled away on his feet to the tent of Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite; for there was peace between Jabin the king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite.

His sons didn’t walk in his ways, but turned away after dishonest gain, took bribes, and perverted justice.

“If I have withheld the poor from their desire, or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail,

Your princes are rebellious and companions of thieves. Everyone loves bribes and follows after rewards. They don’t defend the fatherless, neither does the cause of the widow come to them.

who cause a person to be indicted by a word, and lay a snare for the arbiter in the gate, and who deprive the innocent of justice with false testimony.

Yes, the dogs are greedy. They can never have enough. They are shepherds who can’t understand. They have all turned to their own way, each one to his gain, from every quarter.

Therefore I will give their wives to others and their fields to those who will possess them. For everyone from the least even to the greatest is given to covetousness; from the prophet even to the priest everyone deals falsely.

For my eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from my face. Their iniquity isn’t concealed from my eyes.

Kerioth is taken, and the strongholds are seized. The heart of the mighty men of Moab at that day will be as the heart of a woman in her pangs.

They hate him who reproves in the gate, and they abhor him who speaks blamelessly.

All the sinners of my people will die by the sword, who say, ‘Evil won’t overtake nor meet us.’

not a drinker, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous;

Woe to them! For they went in the way of Cain, and ran riotously in the error of Balaam for hire, and perished in Korah’s rebellion.

Hamor and Shechem, his son, came to the gate of their city, and talked with the men of their city, saying,

“You shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds those who have sight and perverts the words of the righteous.

You shall make judges and officers in all your gates, which Yahweh your God gives you, according to your tribes; and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment.

It will happen, when many evils and troubles have come on them, that this song will testify before them as a witness; for it will not be forgotten out of the mouths of their descendants; for I know their ways and what they are doing today, before I have brought them into the land which I promised them.”

Now Boaz went up to the gate and sat down there. Behold, the near kinsman of whom Boaz spoke came by. Boaz said to him, “Come over here, friend, and sit down!” He came over, and sat down.

His children are far from safety. They are crushed in the gate. Neither is there any to deliver them,

if I have lifted up my hand against the fatherless, because I saw my help in the gate,

in whose hands is wickedness, their right hand is full of bribes.

A bribe is a precious stone in the eyes of him who gives it; wherever he turns, he prospers.

He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the righteous, both of them alike are an abomination to Yahweh.

Don’t exploit the poor, because he is poor; and don’t crush the needy in court;

Wisdom is too high for a fool. He doesn’t open his mouth in the gate.

If you see the oppression of the poor, and the violent taking away of justice and righteousness in a district, don’t marvel at the matter, for one official is eyed by a higher one, and there are officials over them.

who acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice for the innocent!

to deprive the needy from justice, and to rob the poor among my people of their rights, that widows may be their plunder, and that they may make the fatherless their prey!

He who walks righteously and speaks blamelessly, he who despises the gain of oppressions, who gestures with his hands, refusing to take a bribe, who stops his ears from hearing of blood, and shuts his eyes from looking at evil—

But these two things will come to you in a moment in one day, the loss of children and widowhood. They will come on you in their full measure, in the multitude of your sorceries, and the great abundance of your enchantments.

“For I know their works and their thoughts. The time comes that I will gather all nations and languages, and they will come, and will see my glory.

because they have done foolish things in Israel, and have committed adultery with their neighbors’ wives, and have spoken words in my name falsely, which I didn’t command them. I am he who knows, and am witness,” says Yahweh.

To crush under foot all the prisoners of the earth,

Their drink has become sour. They play the prostitute continually. Her rulers dearly love their shameful way.

I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hidden from me; for now, Ephraim, you have played the prostitute. Israel is defiled.

and he who is courageous among the mighty will flee away naked on that day,” says Yahweh.

Those who put far away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near;

Her leaders judge for bribes, and her priests teach for a price, and her prophets of it tell fortunes for money: yet they lean on Yahweh, and say, “Isn’t Yahweh among us? No disaster will come on us.”

Their hands are on that which is evil to do it diligently. The ruler and judge ask for a bribe; and the powerful man dictates the evil desire of his soul. Thus they conspire together.

Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails; for the wicked surround the righteous; therefore justice comes out perverted.

I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against the perjurers, and against those who oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and who deprive the foreigner of justice, and don’t fear me,” says Yahweh of Armies.

Which of the prophets didn’t your fathers persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, of whom you have now become betrayers and murderers.

Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you have kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of those who reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Armies.

You have condemned and you have murdered the righteous one. He doesn’t resist you.