Zechariah 7:8–10

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?

²How long will ye judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked? Selah.

³Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy.

⁴Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked.

³To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.

⁵For if ye throughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye throughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbour;

¹⁸He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment.

¹⁹Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.

¹³For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.

¹⁴What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?

¹⁵If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,

¹⁶And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?

¹⁷Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.

¹²O house of David, thus saith the Lord; Execute judgment in the morning, and deliver him that is spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor, lest my fury go out like fire, and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.

⁴²But woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment and the love of God: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.

²⁴But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.

⁹¶ Thus saith the Lord God; Let it suffice you, O princes of Israel: remove violence and spoil, and execute judgment and justice, take away your exactions from my people, saith the Lord God.

¹²Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon you.

¹³Ye have plowed wickedness, ye have reaped iniquity; ye have eaten the fruit of lies: because thou didst trust in thy way, in the multitude of thy mighty men.

⁶Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?

⁷Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?

⁸¶ Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward.

⁹Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity;

¹⁰And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday:

²³But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you.

⁵¹Doth our law judge any man, before it hear him, and know what he doeth?

³⁵¶ Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or in measure.

³⁶Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin, shall ye have: I am the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt.

³⁷Therefore shall ye observe all my statutes, and all my judgments, and do them: I am the Lord.

²³Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.

⁷Should ye not hear the words which the Lord hath cried by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity, and the cities thereof round about her, when men inhabited the south and the plain?

¹⁸¶ Judges and officers shalt thou make thee in all thy gates, which the Lord thy God giveth thee, throughout thy tribes: and they shall judge the people with just judgment.

¹⁹Thou shalt not wrest judgment; thou shalt not respect persons, neither take a gift: for a gift doth blind the eyes of the wise, and pervert the words of the righteous.

²⁰That which is altogether just shalt thou follow, that thou mayest live, and inherit the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

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.

¹⁶¶ These are the things that ye shall do; Speak ye every man the truth to his neighbour; execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates:

¹⁷And let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbour; and love no false oath: for all these are things that I hate, saith the Lord.

⁷¶ If there be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren within any of thy gates in thy land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thine heart, nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother:

⁸But thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him, and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need, in that which he wanteth.

⁹Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand; and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou givest him nought; and he cry unto the Lord against thee, and it be sin unto thee.

¹⁰Thou shalt surely give him, and thine heart shall not be grieved when thou givest unto him: because that for this thing the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thy works, and in all that thou puttest thine hand unto.

¹¹For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land.

¹²¶ And if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee.

¹³And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty:

¹⁴Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress: of that wherewith the Lord thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him.

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.

¹⁵Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.

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

¹⁶¶ Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil;

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

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.

⁴Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.

²²Rob not the poor, because he is poor: neither oppress the afflicted in the gate:

²³For the Lord will plead their cause, and spoil the soul of those that spoiled them.

¹¹For they intended evil against thee: they imagined a mischievous device, which they are not able to perform.

⁴He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor.

¹⁰Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

¹HEAR this word, ye kine of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, which oppress the poor, which crush the needy, which say to their masters, Bring, and let us drink.

¹¹Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them.

¹²For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right.

¹⁴¶ Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers that are in thy land within thy gates:

¹⁵At his day thou shalt give him his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon it; for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it: lest he cry against thee unto the Lord, and it be sin unto thee.

¹⁶The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.

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

¹⁸But thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee thence: therefore I command thee to do this thing.

⁹¶ Also thou shalt not oppress a stranger: for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.

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.

²⁹The people of the land have used oppression, and exercised robbery, and have vexed the poor and needy: yea, they have oppressed the stranger wrongfully.

⁷In thee have they set light by father and mother: in the midst of thee have they dealt by oppression with the stranger: in thee have they vexed the fatherless and the widow.

¹⁴But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.

¹⁵Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

¹⁹But I was like a lamb or an ox that is brought to the slaughter; and I knew not that they had devised devices against me, saying, Let us destroy the tree with the fruit thereof, and let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be no more remembered.

²⁰But, O Lord of hosts, that judgest righteously, that triest the reins and the heart, let me see thy vengeance on them: for unto thee have I revealed my cause.

¹⁸¶ Then said they, Come, and let us devise devices against Jeremiah; for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, and let us smite him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to any of his words.

¹⁵Shalt thou reign, because thou closest thyself in cedar? did not thy father eat and drink, and do judgment and justice, and then it was well with him?

¹⁶He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well with him: was not this to know me? saith the Lord.

¹⁷But thine eyes and thine heart are not but for thy covetousness, and for to shed innocent blood, and for oppression, and for violence, to do it.

⁵And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts.

²¹For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,

²²Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness:

²³All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.

¹³¶ But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.

¹WOE to them that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds! when the morning is light, they practise it, because it is in the power of their hand.

²And they covet fields, and take them by violence; and houses, and take them away: so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage.

³Therefore thus saith the Lord; Behold, against this family do I devise an evil, from which ye shall not remove your necks; neither shall ye go haughtily: for this time is evil.

¹AND I said, Hear, I pray you, O heads of Jacob, and ye princes of the house of Israel; Is it not for you to know judgment?

²Who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones;

³Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them; and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron.

⁴Then shall they cry unto the Lord, but he will not hear them: he will even hide his face from them at that time, as they have behaved themselves ill in their doings.

¹⁰Remove not the old landmark; and enter not into the fields of the fatherless:

¹¹For their redeemer is mighty; he shall plead their cause with thee.

²⁹Devise not evil against thy neighbour, seeing he dwelleth securely by thee.

¹⁸An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief,

²Which imagine mischiefs in their heart; continually are they gathered together for war.

¹⁷And let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbour; and love no false oath: for all these are things that I hate, saith the Lord.

¹WOE to her that is filthy and polluted, to the oppressing city!

²She obeyed not the voice; she received not correction; she trusted not in the Lord; she drew not near to her God.

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

²¹¶ Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.

²²¶ Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child.

²³If thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry at all unto me, I will surely hear their cry;

²⁴And my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with the sword; and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless.

⁴He deviseth mischief upon his bed; he setteth himself in a way that is not good; he abhorreth not evil.