Hosea 4:18

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the farmer.

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.’

“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 eat, but not be satisfied. Your humiliation will be within you. You will store up, but not save; and that which you save I will give up to the sword.

You will bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of your inheritance, the place, Yahweh, which you have made for yourself to dwell in; the sanctuary, Lord, which your hands have established.

“You shall not follow a crowd to do evil. You shall not testify in court to side with a multitude to pervert justice.

“ ‘You shall do no injustice in judgment. You shall not be partial to the poor, nor show favoritism to the great; but you shall judge your neighbor in righteousness.

When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread again by weight. You shall eat, and not be satisfied.

You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not be afraid of the face of man, for the judgment is God’s. The case that is too hard for you, you shall bring to me, and I will hear it.”

You brought a vine out of Egypt. You drove out the nations, and planted it.

For our shield belongs to Yahweh, our king to the Holy One of Israel.

He dug it up, gathered out its stones, planted it with the choicest vine, built a tower in the middle of it, and also cut out a wine press in it. He looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.

What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? Why, when I looked for it to yield grapes, did it yield wild grapes?

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

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.’

You have profaned me among my people for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread, to kill the souls who should not die, and to save the souls alive who should not live, by your lying to my people who listen to lies.’

“Son of man, the house of Israel has become dross to me. All of them are bronze, tin, iron, and lead in the middle of the furnace. They are the dross of silver.

As gangs of robbers wait to ambush a man, so the company of priests murder on the path toward Shechem, committing shameful crimes.

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.’

For there is no good tree that produces rotten fruit; nor again a rotten tree that produces good fruit.

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

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.

Here I am. Witness against me before Yahweh, and before his anointed. Whose ox have I taken? Whose donkey have I taken? Whom have I defrauded? Whom have I oppressed? Of whose hand have I taken a bribe to make me blind my eyes? I will restore it to you.”

Now therefore let the fear of Yahweh be on you. Take heed and do it; for there is no iniquity with Yahweh our God, nor respect of persons, nor taking of bribes.”

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.

You drove out the nations with your hand, but you planted them. You afflicted the peoples, but you spread them abroad.

He who is greedy for gain troubles his own house, but he who hates bribes will live.

A wicked man receives a bribe in secret, to pervert the ways of justice.

To be partial to the faces of the wicked is not good, nor to deprive the innocent of justice.

These also are sayings of the wise. To show partiality in judgment is not good.

“For three things the earth trembles, and under four, it can’t bear up:

“There are three things which are stately in their march, four which are stately in going:

Surely extortion makes the wise man foolish; and a bribe destroys the understanding.

Learn to do well. Seek justice. Relieve the oppressed. Defend the fatherless. Plead for the widow.”

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

In that day, sing to her, “A pleasant vineyard!

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.

Men will call them rejected silver, because Yahweh has rejected them.”

Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! For they are all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.

For Yahweh of Armies, who planted you, has pronounced evil against you, because of the evil of the house of Israel and of the house of Judah, which they have done to themselves in provoking me to anger by offering incense to Baal.

Then Yahweh said to me, “The prophets prophesy lies in my name. I didn’t send them. I didn’t command them. I didn’t speak to them. They prophesy to you a lying vision, divination, and a thing of nothing, and the deceit of their own heart.

“ ‘ “Behold, the princes of Israel, everyone according to his power, have been in you to shed blood.

Slanderous men have been in you to shed blood. In you they have eaten on the mountains. They have committed lewdness among you.

“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.

They make promises, swearing falsely in making covenants. Therefore judgment springs up like poisonous weeds in the furrows of the field.

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

Peter opened his mouth and said, “Truly I perceive that God doesn’t show favoritism;

For there is no partiality with God.

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

My brothers, don’t hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ of glory with partiality.

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

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.

For Yahweh your God, he is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, the mighty, and the awesome, who doesn’t respect persons or take bribes.

You shall not deprive the foreigner or the fatherless of justice, nor take a widow’s clothing in pledge;

For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, of the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are poison grapes. Their clusters are bitter.

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

Your silver has become dross, your wine mixed with water.

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.

As a well produces its waters, so she produces her wickedness. Violence and destruction is heard in her. Sickness and wounds are continually before me.

When I would heal Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim is uncovered, also the wickedness of Samaria; for they commit falsehood, and the thief enters in, and the gang of robbers ravages outside.

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

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.”

The godly man has perished out of the earth, and there is no one upright among men. They all lie in wait for blood; every man hunts his brother with a net.

You have sown much, and bring in little. You eat, but you don’t have enough. You drink, but you aren’t filled with drink. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm, and he who earns wages earns wages to put them into a bag with holes in it.”

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

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.

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

The princes of the peoples are gathered together, the people of the God of Abraham. For the shields of the earth belong to God. He is greatly exalted!

To show partiality is not good; yet a man will do wrong for a piece of bread.

“The leech has two daughters: ‘Give, give.’ “There are three things that are never satisfied; four that don’t say, ‘Enough:’

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.

Yet I had planted you a noble vine, a pure and faithful seed. How then have you turned into the degenerate branches of a foreign vine to me?

There is cursing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery; they break boundaries, and bloodshed causes bloodshed.

They will eat, and not have enough. They will play the prostitute, and will not increase; because they have abandoned giving to Yahweh.

For I know how many your offenses, and how great are your sins— you who afflict the just, who take a bribe, and who turn away the needy in the courts.

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.

Meanwhile, he also hoped that money would be given to him by Paul, that he might release him. Therefore also he sent for him more often and talked with him.