Deuteronomy 16:19–20

¹⁵¶ Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour.

²¶ Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgment:

²³A wicked man taketh a gift out of the bosom to pervert the ways of judgment.

¹⁷For the Lord your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward:

¹⁷¶ Thou shalt not pervert the judgment of the stranger, nor of the fatherless; nor take a widow’s raiment to pledge:

⁴Therefore the law is slacked, and judgment doth never go forth: for the wicked doth compass about the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceedeth.

¹⁹Cursed be he that perverteth the judgment of the stranger, fatherless, and widow. And all the people shall say, Amen.

⁷¶ Surely oppression maketh a wise man mad; and a gift destroyeth the heart.

¹⁷Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.

²³These things also belong to the wise. It is not good to have respect of persons in judgment.

³And his sons walked not in his ways, but turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment.

³⁴¶ Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons:

³⁷But Paul said unto them, They have beaten us openly uncondemned, being Romans, and have cast us into prison; and now do they thrust us out privily? nay verily; but let them come themselves and fetch us out.

¹⁶And I charged your judges at that time, saying, Hear the causes between your brethren, and judge righteously between every man and his brother, and the stranger that is with him.

¹⁷Ye shall not respect persons in judgment; but ye shall hear the small as well as the great; ye shall not be afraid of the face of man; for the judgment is God’s: and the cause that is too hard for you, bring it unto me, and I will hear it.

⁶Thou shalt not wrest the judgment of thy poor in his cause.

⁷Keep thee far from a false matter; and the innocent and righteous slay thou not: for I will not justify the wicked.

⁸¶ And thou shalt take no gift: for the gift blindeth the wise, and perverteth the words of the righteous.

³¶ That they may do evil with both hands earnestly, the prince asketh, and the judge asketh for a reward; and the great man, he uttereth his mischievous desire: so they wrap it up.

³Behold, here I am: witness against me before the Lord, and before his anointed: whose ox have I taken? or whose ass have I taken? or whom have I defrauded? whom have I oppressed? or of whose hand have I received any bribe to blind mine eyes therewith? and I will restore it you.

³Then said Paul unto him, God shall smite thee, thou whited wall: for sittest thou to judge me after the law, and commandest me to be smitten contrary to the law?

¹²In thee have they taken gifts to shed blood; thou hast taken usury and increase, and thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbours by extortion, and hast forgotten me, saith the Lord God.

²³Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them.

¹⁵He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil;

²⁸They are waxen fat, they shine: yea, they overpass the deeds of the wicked: they judge not the cause, the cause of the fatherless, yet they prosper; and the right of the needy do they not judge.

²¹If I have lifted up my hand against the fatherless, when I saw my help in the gate:

²²Then let mine arm fall from my shoulder blade, and mine arm be broken from the bone.

²⁸Be not a witness against thy neighbour without cause; and deceive not with thy lips.

³Her princes within her are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves; they gnaw not the bones till the morrow.

⁴Her prophets are light and treacherous persons: her priests have polluted the sanctuary, they have done violence to the law.

⁵The just Lord is in the midst thereof; he will not do iniquity: every morning doth he bring his judgment to light, he faileth not; but the unjust knoweth no shame.

⁸Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

⁹Hath walked in my statutes, and hath kept my judgments, to deal truly; he is just, he shall surely live, saith the Lord God.

⁵¶ But if a man be just, and do that which is lawful and right,

⁸He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

¹³¶ Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights, a great and a small.

¹⁴Thou shalt not have in thine house divers measures, a great and a small.

¹⁵But thou shalt have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have: that thy days may be lengthened in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

¹⁶For all that do such things, and all that do unrighteously, are an abomination unto the Lord thy God.

¹NOW therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments, which I teach you, for to do them, that ye may live, and go in and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers giveth you.

⁵For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them.