Job 31:21

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

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.

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

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

‘Cursed is he who dishonors his father or his mother.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

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.

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

I was a father to the needy. I researched the cause of him who I didn’t know.

Blessed is he who considers the poor. Yahweh will deliver him in the day of evil.

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

A scoffer seeks wisdom, and doesn’t find it, but knowledge comes easily to a discerning person.

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.

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;

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.’

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.

Agrippa said to Festus, “This man might have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar.”

But when the Jews spoke against it, I was constrained to appeal to Caesar, not that I had anything about which to accuse my nation.

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.”

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

They drive away the donkey of the fatherless, and they take the widow’s ox for a pledge.

He devours the barren who don’t bear. He shows no kindness to the widow.

His ways are prosperous at all times. He is arrogant, and your laws are far from his sight. As for all his adversaries, he sneers at them.

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

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

Whoever stops his ears at the cry of the poor, he will also cry out, but shall not be heard.

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

They make the king glad with their wickedness, and the princes with their lies.

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.”

For the son dishonors the father, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man’s enemies are the men of his own house.

But when I found that he had committed nothing worthy of death, and as he himself appealed to the emperor I determined to send him,

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

“ ‘For everyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother. His blood shall be upon himself.

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.

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.

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

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.”

Because I delivered the poor who cried, and the fatherless also, who had no one to help him,

the blessing of him who was ready to perish came on me, and I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy.

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

He has dug a hole, and has fallen into the pit which he made.

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.

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.

Rescue the weak and needy. Deliver them out of the hand of the wicked.”

Yahweh executes righteous acts, and justice for all who are oppressed.

Beside the gates, at the entry of the city, at the entry doors, she cries aloud:

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

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!

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.

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;

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.

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.

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.

Moreover Jeremiah said to king Zedekiah, “How have I sinned against you, against your servants, or against this people, that you have put me in prison?

The horn of Moab is cut off, and his arm is broken,” says Yahweh.

Then the king commanded, and they brought Daniel, and cast him into the den of lions. The king spoke and said to Daniel, “Your God whom you serve continually, he will deliver you.”

and have cast lots for my people, and have given a boy for a prostitute, and sold a girl for wine, that they may drink.

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

Yet was she carried away. She went into captivity. Her young children also were dashed in pieces at the head of all the streets, and they cast lots for her honorable men, and all her great men were bound in chains.

These are the things that you shall do: speak every man the truth with his neighbor. Execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates,

saying, “There was a judge in a certain city who didn’t fear God, and didn’t respect man.

but if they are questions about words and names and your own law, look to it yourselves. For I don’t want to be a judge of these matters.”

saying, ‘Don’t be afraid, Paul. You must stand before Caesar. Behold, God has granted you all those who sail with you.’

Now the natural man doesn’t receive the things of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to him, and he can’t know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

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.

In covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words: whose sentence now from of old doesn’t linger, and their destruction will not slumber.

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

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.

Yes, you would even cast lots for the fatherless, and make merchandise of your friend.

There are those who pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge of the poor,

when I went out to the city gate, when I prepared my seat in the street.

Therefore my spirit is overwhelmed within me. My heart within me is desolate.

Don’t move the ancient boundary stone. Don’t encroach on the fields of the fatherless,

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

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

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.

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.

Should evil be recompensed for good? For they have dug a pit for my soul. Remember how I stood before you to speak good for them, to turn away your wrath from them.

Surely he turns his hand against me again and again all day long.

In you have they treated father and mother with contempt. Among you they have oppressed the foreigner. In you they have wronged the fatherless and the widow.

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.

For if I have done wrong and have committed anything worthy of death, I don’t refuse to die; but if none of those things is true that they accuse me of, no one can give me up to them. I appeal to Caesar!”