Jeremiah 5:28

Proclaim in the palaces at Ashdod, and in the palaces in the land of Egypt, and say, “Assemble yourselves on the mountains of Samaria, and see what unrest is in her, and what oppression is among them.”

He executes justice for the fatherless and widow and loves the foreigner in giving him food and clothing.

But you do see trouble and grief. You consider it to take it into your hand. You help the victim and the fatherless.

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

This is what Yahweh who made you, and formed you from the womb, who will help you says: “Don’t be afraid, Jacob my servant; and you, Jeshurun, whom I have chosen.

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.”

Many bulls have surrounded me. Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me.

lest I be full, deny you, and say, ‘Who is Yahweh?’ or lest I be poor, and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God.

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

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

But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked. You have grown fat. You have grown thick. You have become sleek. Then he abandoned God who made him, and rejected the Rock of his salvation.

Then the Levitical priests arose and blessed the people. Their voice was heard, and their prayer came up to his holy habitation, even to heaven.

They took fortified cities and a rich land, and possessed houses full of all good things, cisterns dug out, vineyards, olive groves, and fruit trees in abundance. So they ate, were filled, became fat, and delighted themselves in your great goodness.

“Why do the wicked live, become old, yes, and grow mighty in power?

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.

For I was envious of the arrogant, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

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

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.

Circumcise yourselves to Yahweh, and take away the foreskins of your heart, you men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go out like fire, and burn so that no one can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.

Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods that you have not known,

Leave your fatherless children. I will preserve them alive. Let your widows trust in me.”

Assyria can’t save us. We won’t ride on horses; neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, ‘Our gods!’ for in you the fatherless finds mercy.”

Woe to those who are at ease in Zion, and to those who are secure on the mountain of Samaria, the notable men of the chief of the nations, to whom the house of Israel come!

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.

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.’

Now we call the proud happy; yes, those who work wickedness are built up; yes, they tempt God, and escape.’

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.

“ ‘You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s wife. It is your father’s nakedness.

It shall be, if you shall forget Yahweh your God, and walk after other gods, and serve them and worship them, I testify against you today that you shall surely perish.

A man shall not take his father’s wife, and shall not uncover his father’s skirt.

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.’

The Rock: his work is perfect, for all his ways are just. A God of faithfulness who does no wrong, just and right is he.

The earth is given into the hand of the wicked. He covers the faces of its judges. If not he, then who is it?

Yet he filled their houses with good things, but the counsel of the wicked is far from me.

to judge the fatherless and the oppressed, that man who is of the earth may terrify no more.

They close up their callous hearts. With their mouth they speak proudly.

Don’t fret because of evildoers, neither be envious against those who work unrighteousness.

Against you, and you only, I have sinned, and done that which is evil in your sight, so you may be proved right when you speak, and justified when you judge.

“Behold, this is the man who didn’t make God his strength, but trusted in the abundance of his riches, and strengthened himself in his wickedness.”

For he will deliver the needy when he cries; the poor, who has no helper.

Behold, these are the wicked. Being always at ease, they increase in riches.

But my people didn’t listen to my voice. Israel desired none of me.

He will call to me, ‘You are my Father, my God, and the rock of my salvation!’

though the wicked spring up as the grass, and all the evildoers flourish, they will be destroyed forever.

Morning by morning, I will destroy all the wicked of the land, to cut off all the workers of iniquity from Yahweh’s city.

You are righteous, Yahweh. Your judgments are upright.

Yahweh preserves the foreigners. He upholds the fatherless and widow, but he turns the way of the wicked upside down.

The strong will be like tinder, and his work like a spark. They will both burn together, and no one will quench them.”

Make the heart of this people fat. Make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their heart, and turn again, and be healed.”

Also the blood of the souls of the innocent poor is found in your skirts. You didn’t find them breaking in, but it is because of all these things.

This evil people, who refuse to hear my words, who walk in the stubbornness of their heart, and have gone after other gods to serve them, and to worship them, will even be as this belt, which is profitable for nothing.

It may be they will present their supplication before Yahweh, and will each return from his evil way; for Yahweh has pronounced great anger and wrath against this people.”

“Yahweh is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment. Please hear all you peoples, and see my sorrow. My virgins and my young men have gone into captivity.

“Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not equal.’ Hear now, house of Israel: Is my way not equal? Aren’t your ways unequal?

You shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bulls, all of them fatlings of Bashan.

“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.

According to their pasture, so were they filled; they were filled, and their heart was exalted. Therefore they have forgotten me.

Therefore, because you trample on the poor, and take taxes from him of wheat: You have built houses of cut stone, but you will not dwell in them. You have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine.

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

Yahweh, within her, is righteous. He will do no wrong. Every morning he brings his justice to light. He doesn’t fail, but the unjust know no shame.

Be silent, all flesh, before Yahweh; for he has roused himself from his holy habitation!”

For this people’s heart has grown callous. Their ears are dull of hearing. Their eyes they have closed. Lest they should see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their heart, and would turn again, then I would heal them.’

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.”

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

“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.”

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

For when I have brought them into the land which I swore to their fathers, flowing with milk and honey, and they have eaten and filled themselves, and grown fat, then they will turn to other gods, and serve them, and despise me, and break my covenant.

Yahweh lives! Blessed be my rock! Exalted be God, the rock of my salvation,

A father of the fatherless, and a defender of the widows, is God in his holy habitation.

Their eyes bulge with fat. Their minds pass the limits of conceit.

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;

House of David, Yahweh says, ‘Execute justice in the morning, and deliver him who is robbed out of the hand of the oppressor, lest my wrath go out like fire, and burn so that no one can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.

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.

He offered the tribute to Eglon king of Moab. Now Eglon was a very fat man.

then hear from heaven their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their cause.

The tents of robbers prosper. Those who provoke God are secure, who carry their god in their hands.

because he has covered his face with his fatness, and gathered fat on his thighs.

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

He will judge the poor of the people. He will save the children of the needy, and will break the oppressor in pieces.

when God arose to judgment, to save all the afflicted ones of the earth.

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

Their heart is as callous as the fat, but I delight in your law.

The king who fairly judges the poor, his throne shall be established forever.

Open your mouth, judge righteously, and serve justice to the poor and needy.”

Then the lambs will graze as in their pasture, and strangers will eat the ruins of the rich.

but he will judge the poor with righteousness, and decide with equity for the humble of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; and with the breath of his lips he will kill the wicked.

How well you prepare your way to seek love! Therefore you have even taught the wicked women your ways.

You are righteous, Yahweh, when I contend with you; yet I would like to reason the cause with you. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are they all at ease who deal very treacherously?

Yahweh says: “Execute justice and righteousness, and deliver him who is robbed out of the hand of the oppressor. Do no wrong. Do no violence to the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow. Don’t shed innocent blood in this place.

He judged the cause of the poor and needy; so it was well, then. Wasn’t this to know me?” says Yahweh.

“Because you are glad, because you rejoice, O you who plunder my heritage, because you are wanton as a heifer that treads out the grain, and neigh as strong horses;

Listen to this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who tell their husbands, “Bring us drinks!”

Please listen to this, you heads of the house of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel, who abhor justice, and pervert all equity.

A widow was in that city, and she often came to him, saying, ‘Defend me from my adversary!’

for he is a servant of God to you for good. But if you do that which is evil, be afraid, for he doesn’t bear the sword in vain; for he is a servant of God, an avenger for wrath to him who does evil.

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles, that one has his father’s wife.

then hear in heaven their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their cause.

The righteous care about justice for the poor. The wicked aren’t concerned about knowledge.