James 5:4

In nothing be anxious, but in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better than that of Abel.

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.

For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle the ox when it treads out the grain.” And, “The laborer is worthy of his wages.”

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.

Yahweh passed by before him, and proclaimed, “Yahweh! Yahweh, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness and truth,

“ ‘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.

He will redeem their soul from oppression and violence. Their blood will be precious in his sight.

Don’t say to your neighbor, “Go, and come again; tomorrow I will give it to you,” when you have it by you.

for Yahweh will plead their case, and plunder the life of those who plunder them.

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.

They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.

They cried with a loud voice, saying, “How long, Master, the holy and true, until you judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”

I will surely require accounting for your life’s blood. At the hand of every animal I will require it. At the hand of man, even at the hand of every man’s brother, I will require the life of man.

Then Yahweh rained on Sodom and on Gomorrah sulfur and fire from Yahweh out of the sky.

Reuben answered them, saying, “Didn’t I tell you, saying, ‘Don’t sin against the child,’ and you wouldn’t listen? Therefore also, behold, his blood is required.”

and they made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and in brick, and in all kinds of service in the field, all their service, in which they ruthlessly made them serve.

Yahweh said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows.

Yahweh said to Moses in Midian, “Go, return into Egypt; for all the men who sought your life are dead.”

You shall not rule over him with harshness, but shall fear your God.

“ ‘So you shall not pollute the land where you live; for blood pollutes the land. No atonement can be made for the land, for the blood that is shed in it, but by the blood of him who shed it.

“By reason of the multitude of oppressions they cry out. They cry for help by reason of the arm of the mighty.

Arise, Yahweh! God, lift up your hand! Don’t forget the helpless.

My God, I cry in the daytime, but you don’t answer; in the night season, and am not silent.

Yahweh, the God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before you.

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

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!

Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans’ pride, will be like when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.

As when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and its neighbor cities,” says Yahweh, “so no man will dwell there, neither will any son of man live therein.

Isn’t it lawful for me to do what I want to with what I own? Or is your eye evil, because I am good?’

He answered them, “I tell you that if these were silent, the stones would cry out.”

“When forty years were fulfilled, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush.

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.”

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

Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood?

Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. They built storage cities for Pharaoh: Pithom and Raamses.

Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, “You shall cast every son who is born into the river, and every daughter you shall save alive.”

“You shall not steal.

If you take advantage of them at all, and they cry at all to me, I will surely hear their cry;

How much more, when wicked men have slain a righteous person in his own house on his bed, should I not now require his blood from your hand, and rid the earth of you?”

Yet I reserved seven thousand in Israel, all the knees of which have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth which has not kissed him.”

Jehoahaz begged Yahweh, and Yahweh listened to him; for he saw the oppression of Israel, how the king of Syria oppressed them.

For if you turn again to Yahweh, your brothers and your children will find compassion before those who led them captive, and will come again into this land, because Yahweh your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn away his face from you, if you return to him.”

In my distress I called on Yahweh, and cried to my God. He heard my voice out of his temple. My cry before him came into his ears.

They don’t know, neither do they understand. They walk back and forth in darkness. All the foundations of the earth are shaken.

He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for his Maker, but he who is kind to the needy honors him.

Don’t eat the food of him who has a stingy eye, and don’t crave his delicacies:

“Now I will arise,” says Yahweh. “Now I will lift myself up. Now I will be exalted.

It may be Yahweh your God will hear the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master has sent to defy the living God, and will rebuke the words which Yahweh your God has heard. Therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left.’ ”

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.

and said to Jeremiah the prophet, “Please let our supplication be presented before you, and pray for us to Yahweh your God, even for all this remnant; for we are left but a few of many, as your eyes see us;

As in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah and its neighbor cities,” says Yahweh, “no man will dwell there, neither will any son of man live therein.

In those days, and in that time,” says Yahweh, “the iniquity of Israel will be sought for, and there will be none; also the sins of Judah, and they won’t be found; for I will pardon them whom I leave as a remnant.

It is because of Yahweh’s loving kindnesses that we are not consumed, because his compassion doesn’t fail.

“I have overthrown some of you, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a burning stick plucked out of the fire; yet you haven’t returned to me,” says Yahweh.

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.

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.

By faith, Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he had testimony given to him that he was righteous, God testifying with respect to his gifts; and through it he, being dead, still speaks.

The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some count slowness; but he is patient with us, not wishing that anyone should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

This is the boldness which we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he listens to us.

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

Yahweh said, “Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous,

Beware that there not be a wicked thought in your heart, saying, “The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand,” and your eye be evil against your poor brother and you give him nothing; and he cry to Yahweh against you, and it be sin to you.

They make oil within the walls of these men. They tread wine presses, and suffer thirst.

if I have eaten its fruits without money, or have caused its owners to lose their life,

“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.”

“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;

for we will destroy this place, because the outcry against them has grown so great before Yahweh that Yahweh has sent us to destroy it.”

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.

for that is his only covering, it is his garment for his skin. What would he sleep in? It will happen, when he cries to me, that I will hear, for I am gracious.

In my distress, I called on Yahweh. Yes, I called to my God. He heard my voice out of his temple. My cry came into his ears.

Then there arose a great cry of the people and of their wives against their brothers the Jews.

As a servant who earnestly desires the shadow, as a hireling who looks for his wages,

For he has oppressed and forsaken the poor. He has violently taken away a house, and he will not build it up.

If my land cries out against me, and its furrows weep together;

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

For he who avenges blood remembers them. He doesn’t forget the cry of the afflicted.

Don’t withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in the power of your hand to do it.

The rich rule over the poor. The borrower is servant to the lender.

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.

Unless Yahweh of Armies had left to us a very small remnant, we would have been as Sodom. We would have been like Gomorrah.

The people will be oppressed, everyone by another, and everyone by his neighbor. The child will behave himself proudly against the old man, and the wicked against the honorable.

For the vineyard of Yahweh of Armies is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for justice, but, behold, oppression; for righteousness, but, behold, a cry of distress.

Moab is laid waste, and they have gone up into his cities, and his chosen young men have gone down to the slaughter,” says the King, whose name is Yahweh of Armies.

The people of the land have used oppression and exercised robbery. Yes, they have troubled the poor and needy, and have oppressed the foreigner wrongfully.

A merchant has dishonest scales in his hand. He loves to defraud.

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.

For the stone will cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the woodwork will answer it.

Then he said to me, “This is the curse that goes out over the surface of the whole land; for everyone who steals shall be cut off according to it on the one side; and everyone who swears falsely shall be cut off according to it on the other side.

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.’

Won’t God avenge his chosen ones who are crying out to him day and night, and yet he exercises patience with them?

Masters, give to your servants that which is just and equal, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.