Isaiah 3:15

For God didn’t give us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control.

But these things don’t count; nor do I hold my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to fully testify to the Good News of the grace of God.

“Because of the oppression of the weak and because of the groaning of the needy, I will now arise,” says Yahweh; “I will set him in safety from those who malign him.”

Yes, and if I am poured out on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice, and rejoice with you all.

“You shall not take advantage of any widow or fatherless child.

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.

They proclaimed a fast, and set Naboth on high among the people.

He is like a lion that is greedy of his prey, as it were a young lion lurking in secret places.

For, behold, they lie in wait for my soul. The mighty gather themselves together against me, not for my disobedience, nor for my sin, Yahweh.

Moreover I saw under the sun, in the place of justice, that wickedness was there; and in the place of righteousness, that wickedness was there.

Then I returned and saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold, the tears of those who were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter.

Our fathers sinned, and are no more. We have borne their iniquities.

Her princes within it are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood, and to destroy souls, that they may get dishonest gain.

If it happens, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace; and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king.

You offspring of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

“This man was seized by the Jews, and was about to be killed by them, when I came with the soldiers and rescued him, having learned that he was a Roman.

that no one would be moved by these afflictions. For you know that we are appointed to this task.

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

If he is a poor man, you shall not sleep with his pledge.

‘Cursed is he who withholds justice from the foreigner, fatherless, and widow.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread, and don’t call on God?

Don’t envy the man of violence. Choose none of his ways.

If you say, “Behold, we didn’t know this,” doesn’t he who weighs the hearts consider it? He who keeps your soul, doesn’t he know it? Shall he not render to every man according to his work?

All this I have seen, and applied my mind to every work that is done under the sun. There is a time in which one man has power over another to his hurt.

but let them be covered with sackcloth, both man and animal, and let them cry mightily to God. Yes, let them turn everyone from his evil way, and from the violence that is in his hands.

Who knows whether God will not turn and relent, and turn away from his fierce anger, so that we might not perish?”

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.

For I will show him how many things he must suffer for my name’s sake.”

Now, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me. Moreover I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.

If you take your neighbor’s garment as collateral, you shall restore it to him before the sun goes down,

“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 not oppress an alien, for you know the heart of an alien, since you were aliens in the land of Egypt.

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.”

As the proverb of the ancients says, ‘Out of the wicked comes wickedness;’ but my hand will not be on you.

He said, “While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, ‘Who knows whether Yahweh will not be gracious to me, that the child may live?’

I said, “Should a man like me flee? Who is there that, being such as I, would go into the temple to save his life? I will not go in.”

The members of his body will be devoured. The firstborn of death will devour his members.

He doesn’t respect the persons of princes, nor respect the rich more than the poor; for they all are the work of his hands.

Rest in Yahweh, and wait patiently for him. Don’t fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who makes wicked plots happen.

God presides in the great assembly. He judges among the gods.

“Defend the weak, the poor, and the fatherless. Maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.

They conspire with cunning against your people. They plot against your cherished ones.

They break your people in pieces, Yahweh, and afflict your heritage.

The wicked desires the plunder of evil men, but the root of the righteous flourishes.

The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination— how much more, when he brings it with a wicked mind!

Set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your arm; for love is strong as death. Jealousy is as cruel as Sheol. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a very flame of Yahweh.

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.

The crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim will be trodden under foot.

For the fool will speak folly, and his heart will work iniquity, to practice profanity, and to utter error against Yahweh, to make empty the soul of the hungry, and to cause the drink of the thirsty to fail.

But your iniquities have separated you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.

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.

The word which came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, after Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had let him go from Ramah, when he had taken him being bound in chains among all the captives of Jerusalem and Judah, who were carried away captive to Babylon.

You eat the fat. You clothe yourself with the wool. You kill the fatlings, but you don’t feed the sheep.

All the presidents of the kingdom, the deputies and the local governors, the counselors and the governors, have consulted together to establish a royal statute, and to make a strong decree, that whoever asks a petition of any god or man for thirty days, except of you, O king, he shall be cast into the den of lions.

Hate evil, love good, and establish justice in the courts. It may be that Yahweh, the God of Armies, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.”

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.

He takes up all of them with the hook. He catches them in his net, and gathers them in his dragnet. Therefore he rejoices and is glad.

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.

You shall tread down the wicked; for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I make,” says Yahweh of Armies.

But if that evil servant should say in his heart, ‘My lord is delaying his coming,’

They therefore departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for Jesus’ name.

They all wept freely, and fell on Paul’s neck and kissed him,

But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed ask him who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?”

I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.

since he longed for you all, and was very troubled because you had heard that he was sick.

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the assembly,

longing to see you, remembering your tears, that I may be filled with joy;

For I am already being offered, and the time of my departure has come.

knowing that the putting off of my tent comes swiftly, even as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me.

Don’t be afraid of the things which you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested; and you will have oppression for ten days. Be faithful to death, and I will give you the crown of life.

Because you kept my command to endure, I also will keep you from the hour of testing which is to come on the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth.

They overcame him because of the Lamb’s blood, and because of the word of their testimony. They didn’t love their life, even to death.

For in an hour such great riches are made desolate.’ Every ship master, and everyone who sails anywhere, and mariners, and as many as gain their living by sea, stood far away,

The officers of the children of Israel, whom Pharaoh’s taskmasters had set over them, were beaten, and were asked, “Why haven’t you fulfilled your quota both yesterday and today, in making brick as before?”

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

God gives them security, and they rest in it. His eyes are on their ways.

He sings before men, and says, ‘I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it didn’t profit me.

He lurks in secret as a lion in his ambush. He lies in wait to catch the helpless. He catches the helpless when he draws him in his net.

All my bones shall say, “Yahweh, who is like you, who delivers the poor from him who is too strong for him; yes, the poor and the needy from him who robs him?”

For he will stand at the right hand of the needy, to save him from those who judge his soul.

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

lest they drink, and forget the law, and pervert the justice due to anyone who is afflicted.

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.

The firstborn of the poor will eat, and the needy will lie down in safety; and I will kill your root with famine, and your remnant will be killed.

The foot shall tread it down, even the feet of the poor and the steps of the needy.”

Behold, you fast for strife and contention, and to strike with the fist of wickedness. You don’t fast today so as to make your voice to be heard on high.

if you don’t oppress the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, and don’t shed innocent blood in this place, and don’t walk after other gods to your own hurt;

He is to me as a bear lying in wait, as a lion in secret places.

“What do you mean, that you use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge’?

and has not wronged any, but has restored to the debtor his pledge, has taken nothing by robbery, has given his bread to the hungry, and has covered the naked with a garment;

You will say, ‘I will go up to the land of unwalled villages. I will go to those who are at rest, who dwell securely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates,

Then these men assembled together, and found Daniel making petition and supplication before his God.

Will a lion roar in the thicket, when he has no prey? Does a young lion cry out of his den, if he has caught nothing?

So the ship master came to him, and said to him, “What do you mean, sleeper? Arise, call on your God! Maybe your God will notice us, so that we won’t perish.”

You who hate the good, and love the evil; who tear off their skin, and their flesh from off their bones;

Immediately he took soldiers and centurions and ran down to them. They, when they saw the chief captain and the soldiers, stopped beating Paul.

that we may no longer be children, tossed back and forth and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error;

But you have dishonored the poor man. Don’t the rich oppress you, and personally drag you before the courts?

Then Paul answered, “What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.”