Proverbs 22:16

My soul is among lions. I lie among those who are set on fire, even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword.

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

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

But if you don’t forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Yahweh will open to you his good treasure in the sky, to give the rain of your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand. You will lend to many nations, and you will not borrow.

Arise, Yahweh! Save me, my God! For you have struck all of my enemies on the cheek bone. You have broken the teeth of the wicked.

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

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

When the wicked rise, men hide themselves; but when they perish, the righteous thrive.

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 King will answer them, ‘Most certainly I tell you, because you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

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

I broke the jaws of the unrighteous and plucked the prey out of his teeth.

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.

He who is collateral for a stranger will suffer for it, but he who refuses pledges of collateral is secure.

He who is greedy for gain troubles his own house, but he who hates bribes will live.

Whoever mocks the poor reproaches his Maker. He who is glad at calamity shall not be unpunished.

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

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.

Then he will say also to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels;

Don’t judge, and you won’t be judged. Don’t condemn, and you won’t be condemned. Set free, and you will be set free.

“He said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’

What, don’t you have houses to eat and to drink in? Or do you despise God’s assembly and put them to shame who don’t have enough? What shall I tell you? Shall I praise you? In this I don’t praise you.

Moreover he must have good testimony from those who are outside, to avoid falling into reproach and the snare of the devil.

For God is not unrighteous, so as to forget your work and the labor of love which you showed toward his name, in that you served the saints, and still do serve them.

“ ‘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.

You shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God; for I am Yahweh your God.

Now hear me therefore, and send back the captives that you have taken captive from your brothers, for the fierce wrath of Yahweh is on you.”

Didn’t he who made me in the womb make him? Didn’t one fashion us in the womb?

For the needy shall not always be forgotten, nor the hope of the poor perish forever.

For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler, and from the deadly pestilence.

My son, if you have become collateral for your neighbor, if you have struck your hands in pledge for a stranger,

An inheritance quickly gained at the beginning, won’t be blessed in the end.

The rich and the poor have this in common: Yahweh is the maker of them all.

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

He who increases his wealth by excessive interest gathers it for one who has pity on the poor.

A faithful man is rich with blessings; but one who is eager to be rich will not go unpunished.

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

“They will go out, and look at the dead bodies of the men who have transgressed against me; for their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.”

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.

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

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.

This will be the plague with which Yahweh will strike all the peoples who have fought against Jerusalem: their flesh will consume away while they stand on their feet, and their eyes will consume away in their sockets, and their tongue will consume away in their mouth.

For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same?

So my heavenly Father will also do to you, if you don’t each forgive your brother from your hearts for his misdeeds.”

“Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Most certainly I tell you, because you didn’t do it to one of the least of these, you didn’t do it to me.’

Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father, who is in heaven, may also forgive you your transgressions.

Therefore produce fruits worthy of repentance, and don’t begin to say among yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father;’ for I tell you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones!

“Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be given to you. For with the same measure you measure it will be measured back to you.”

But give for gifts to the needy those things which are within, and behold, all things will be clean to you.

When they didn’t find them, they dragged Jason and certain brothers before the rulers of the city, crying, “These who have turned the world upside down have come here also,

Finally, all of you be like-minded, compassionate, loving as brothers, tenderhearted, courteous,

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.

He took up his parable, and said, “From Aram has Balak brought me, the king of Moab from the mountains of the East. Come, curse Jacob for me. Come, defy Israel.

For Yahweh your God will bless you, as he promised you. You will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow. You will rule over many nations, but they will not rule over you.

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.

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

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

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

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.

“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.”

The wicked borrow, and don’t pay back, but the righteous give generously.

Let the sighing of the prisoner come before you. According to the greatness of your power, preserve those who are sentenced to death.

Arise, God, judge the earth, for you inherit all of the nations.

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

Wealth gained dishonestly dwindles away, but he who gathers by hand makes it grow.

The poor plead for mercy, but the rich answer harshly.

It isn’t good to have zeal without knowledge, nor being hasty with one’s feet and missing the way.

The plans of the diligent surely lead to profit; and everyone who is hasty surely rushes to poverty.

Don’t you be one of those who strike hands, of those who are collateral for debts.

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.

and if you pour out your soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul, then your light will rise in darkness, and your obscurity will be as the noonday;

As the partridge that sits on eggs which she has not laid, so is he who gets riches, and not by right. In the middle of his days, they will leave him. At his end, he will be a fool.

Because of Yahweh’s wrath she won’t be inhabited, but she will be wholly desolate. Everyone who goes by Babylon will be astonished, and hiss at all her plagues.

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.

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;

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!”

In that day they will take up a parable against you, and lament with a doleful lamentation, saying, ‘We are utterly ruined! My people’s possession is divided up. Indeed he takes it from me and assigns our fields to traitors!’ ”

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.

He also said to the one who had invited him, “When you make a dinner or a supper, don’t call your friends, nor your brothers, nor your kinsmen, nor rich neighbors, or perhaps they might also return the favor, and pay you back.

For judgment is without mercy to him who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

They had hair like women’s hair, and their teeth were like those of lions.

If anyone was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire.

“ ‘If you sell anything to your neighbor, or buy from your neighbor, you shall not wrong one another.

You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your brothers or one of the foreigners who are in your land within your gates.

They turn the needy out of the way. The poor of the earth all hide themselves.

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.

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

A man void of understanding strikes hands, and becomes collateral in the presence of his neighbor.

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

A needy man who oppresses the poor is like a driving rain which leaves no crops.

A stingy man hurries after riches, and doesn’t know that poverty waits for him.

There is a generation whose teeth are like swords, and their jaws like knives, to devour the poor from the earth, and the needy from among men.

Won’t all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, ‘Woe to him who increases that which is not his, and who enriches himself by extortion! How long?’

He cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue! For I am in anguish in this flame.’

But those who are determined to be rich fall into a temptation, a snare, and many foolish and harmful lusts, such as drown men in ruin and destruction.

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