Micah 3:9

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

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.”

Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the children of Israel.

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

Woe to those who join house to house, who lay field to field, until there is no room, and you are made to dwell alone in the middle of the land!

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

“Yahweh says: ‘Stand in the court of Yahweh’s house, and speak to all the cities of Judah, which come to worship in Yahweh’s house, all the words that I command you to speak to them. Don’t omit a word.

The people believed, and when they heard that Yahweh had visited the children of Israel, and that he had seen their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshiped.

“Keep far from a false charge, and don’t kill the innocent and righteous; for I will not justify the wicked.

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

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

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.

You, Solomon my son, know the God of your father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind; for Yahweh searches all hearts, and understands all the imaginations of the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever.

I will cut off all the horns of the wicked, but the horns of the righteous shall be lifted up.

Also to punish the righteous is not good, nor to flog officials for their integrity.

He who says to the wicked, “You are righteous,” peoples will curse him, and nations will abhor him—

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

“Can a virgin forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet my people have forgotten me for days without number.

A prophet watches over Ephraim with my God. A fowler’s snare is on all of his paths, and hostility in the house of his God.

A day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness. As the dawn spreading on the mountains, a great and strong people; there has never been the like, neither will there be any more after them, even to the years of many generations.

Hear this, you who desire to swallow up the needy, and cause the poor of the land to fail,

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.’

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.

Joseph said to his brothers, “I am dying, but God will surely visit you, and bring you up out of this land to the land which he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.”

“ ‘You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people; but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am Yahweh.

The land also will be left by them, and will enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them; and they will accept the punishment of their iniquity because they rejected my ordinances, and their soul abhorred my statutes.

and said to the judges, “Consider what you do, for you don’t judge for man, but for Yahweh; and he is with you in the judgment.

Then I contended with the rulers, and said, “Why is God’s house forsaken?” I gathered them together, and set them in their place.

I contended with them, and cursed them, and struck certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God, “You shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor take their daughters for your sons, or for yourselves.

“Please inquire of past generations. Find out about the learning of their fathers.

He who walks blamelessly and does what is right, and speaks truth in his heart;

As we have heard, so we have seen, in the city of Yahweh of Armies, in the city of our God. God will establish it forever.

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

For Yahweh God is a sun and a shield. Yahweh will give grace and glory. He withholds no good thing from those who walk blamelessly.

They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood.

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

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

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.

“Whom have you dreaded and feared, so that you lie, and have not remembered me, nor laid it to your heart? Haven’t I held my peace for a long time, and you don’t fear me?

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.

Yahweh said to me, “A conspiracy is found among the men of Judah, and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

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.

But your eyes and your heart are only for your covetousness, for shedding innocent blood, for oppression, and for doing violence.”

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

There is a conspiracy of her prophets within it, like a roaring lion ravening the prey. They have devoured souls. They take treasure and precious things. They have made many widows within it.

“Therefore the Lord Yahweh says: ‘Because you have forgotten me, and cast me behind your back, therefore you also bear your lewdness and your prostitution.’ ”

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.

“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.

Don’t judge according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment.”

Don’t seek revenge yourselves, beloved, but give place to God’s wrath. For it is written, “Vengeance belongs to me; I will repay, says the Lord.”

Every Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness,

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

“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 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 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.

Then she arose with her daughters-in-law, that she might return from the country of Moab; for she had heard in the country of Moab how Yahweh had visited his people in giving them bread.

I am weak today, though anointed king. These men, the sons of Zeruiah are too hard for me. May Yahweh reward the evildoer according to his wickedness.”

They rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified to them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom Yahweh had commanded them that they should not do like them.

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

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!

For you have forgotten the God of your salvation, and have not remembered the rock of your strength. Therefore you plant pleasant plants, and set out foreign seedlings.

I have spread out my hands all day to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, after their own thoughts;

“Lift up your eyes to the bare heights, and see! Where have you not been lain with? You have sat waiting for them by the road, as an Arabian in the wilderness. You have polluted the land with your prostitution and with your wickedness.

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.

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;

They will come with weeping. I will lead them with petitions. I will cause them to walk by rivers of waters, in a straight way in which they won’t stumble; for I am a father to Israel. Ephraim is my firstborn.

because of all the evil of the children of Israel and of the children of Judah, which they have done to provoke me to anger: they, their kings, their princes, their priests, their prophets, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

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

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.

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.

Then the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders of the people were gathered together in the court of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas.

“Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people;

and will dash you and your children within you to the ground. They will not leave in you one stone on another, because you didn’t know the time of your visitation.”

having good behavior among the nations, so in that of which they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they see, glorify God in the day of visitation.

Therefore I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and who will also share in the glory that will be revealed.

Go and gather the elders of Israel together, and tell them, ‘Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me, saying, “I have surely visited you, and seen that which is done to you in Egypt.

and if you shall reject my statutes, and if your soul abhors my ordinances, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant,

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

Then I contended with the nobles of Judah, and said to them, “What evil thing is this that you do, and profane the Sabbath day?

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

He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the righteous, both of them alike are an abomination to Yahweh.

A voice is heard on the bare heights, the weeping and the petitions of the children of Israel; because they have perverted their way, they have forgotten Yahweh their God.

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.

“Stand in the gate of Yahweh’s house, and proclaim this word there, and say, ‘Hear Yahweh’s word, all you of Judah, who enter in at these gates to worship Yahweh.’ ”

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

“Listen to this, you priests! Listen, house of Israel, and give ear, house of the king! For the judgment is against you; for you have been a snare at Mizpah, and a net spread on Tabor.

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

Hear this, you elders, And listen, all you inhabitants of the land. Has this ever happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers?

They covet fields, and seize them; and houses, and take them away: and they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage.

Shall it be said, O house of Jacob: “Is Yahweh’s Spirit angry? Are these his doings? Don’t my words do good to him who walks blamelessly?”

I said, “Please listen, you heads of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel: Isn’t it for you to know justice?

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.