Poverty and the vulnerable

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

²⁸ At the end of every three years, bring a tenth of all your produce for that year and lay it up within your gates.

²⁹ Then the Levite (because he has no portion or inheritance among you), the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow within your gates may come and eat and be satisfied. And the LORD your God will bless you in all the work of your hands.

⁷ If there is a poor man among your brothers within any of the gates in the land that the LORD your God is giving you, then you are not to harden your heart or shut your hand from your poor brother.

⁸ Instead, you are to open your hand to him and freely loan him whatever he needs.

⁹ Be careful not to harbor this wicked thought in your heart: “The seventh year, the year of release, is near,” so that you look upon your poor brother begrudgingly and give him nothing. He will cry out to the LORD against you, and you will be guilty of sin.

¹⁰ Give generously to him, and do not let your heart be grieved when you do so. And because of this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in everything to which you put your hand.

¹¹ For there will never cease to be poor in the land; that is why I am commanding you to open wide your hand to your brother and to the poor and needy in your land.

¹² But she replied, “As surely as the LORD your God lives, I have no bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. Look, I am gathering a couple of sticks to take home and prepare a meal for myself and my son, so that we may eat it and die.”

¹³ “Do not be afraid,” Elijah said to her. “Go and do as you have said. But first make me a small cake of bread from what you have, and bring it out to me. Afterward, make some for yourself and your son,

¹⁴ for this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be exhausted and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the LORD sends rain upon the face of the earth.’”

¹⁵ So she went and did according to the word of Elijah, and there was food every day for Elijah and the woman and her household.

¹⁶ The jar of flour was not exhausted and the jug of oil did not run dry, according to the word that the LORD had spoken through Elijah.

⁵ The well-fed hire themselves out for food, but the starving hunger no more. The barren woman gives birth to seven, but she who has many sons pines away.

⁶ The LORD brings death and gives life; He brings down to Sheol and raises up.

⁷ The LORD sends poverty and wealth; He humbles and He exalts.

⁸ He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap. He seats them among princes and bestows on them a throne of honor. For the foundations of the earth are the LORD’s, and upon them He has set the world.

¹ Now the wife of one of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, “Your servant, my husband, is dead, and you know that your servant feared the LORD. And now his creditor is coming to take my two children as his slaves!”

² “How can I help you?” asked Elisha. “Tell me, what do you have in the house?” She answered, “Your servant has nothing in the house but a jar of oil.”

⁶ When all the jars were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another.” But he replied, “There are no more jars.” Then the oil stopped flowing.

⁷ She went and told the man of God, and he said, “Go, sell the oil, and pay your debt. Then you and your sons can live on the remainder.”

¹⁷ Do not deny justice to the foreigner or the fatherless, and do not take a widow’s cloak as security.

¹⁸ Remember that you were slaves in Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you from that place. Therefore I am commanding you to do this.

¹⁹ If you are harvesting in your field and forget a sheaf there, do not go back to get it. It is to be left for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.

²⁰ When you beat the olives from your trees, you must not go over the branches again. What remains will be for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow.

²¹ When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you must not go over the vines again. What remains will be for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow.

²² Remember that you were slaves in the land of Egypt. Therefore I am commanding you to do this.

²² You must not mistreat any widow or orphan.

²³ If you do mistreat them, and they cry out to Me in distress, I will surely hear their cry.

²⁴ My anger will be kindled, and I will kill you with the sword; then your wives will become widows and your children will be fatherless.

²⁵ If you lend money to one of My people among you who is poor, you must not act as a creditor to him; you are not to charge him interest.

²⁶ If you take your neighbor’s cloak as collateral, return it to him by sunset,

²⁷ because his cloak is the only covering he has for his body. What else will he sleep in? And if he cries out to Me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.

He took up the cause of the poor and needy, and so it went well with him. Is this not what it means to know Me?” declares the LORD.

¹⁶ If I have denied the desires of the poor or allowed the widow’s eyes to fail,

¹⁷ if I have eaten my morsel alone, not sharing it with the fatherless—

¹⁸ though from my youth I reared him as would a father, and from my mother’s womb I guided the widow—

¹⁹ if I have seen one perish for lack of clothing, or a needy man without a cloak,

²⁰ if his heart has not blessed me for warming him with the fleece of my sheep,

²¹ if I have lifted up my hand against the fatherless because I saw that I had support in the gate,

²² then may my arm fall from my shoulder and be torn from its socket.

⁹ When you reap the harvest of your land, you are not to reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest.

¹⁰ You must not strip your vineyard bare or gather its fallen grapes. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the LORD your God.

³⁵ Now if your countryman becomes destitute and cannot support himself among you, then you are to help him as you would a foreigner or stranger, so that he can continue to live among you.

³⁶ Do not take any interest or profit from him, but fear your God, that your countryman may live among you.

³⁷ You must not lend him your silver at interest or sell him your food for profit.

Whoever oppresses the poor taunts their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors Him.

Whoever shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too shall cry out and receive no answer.

²² Do not rob a poor man because he is poor, and do not crush the afflicted at the gate,

²³ for the LORD will take up their case and will plunder those who rob them.

The righteous consider the cause of the poor, but the wicked have no regard for such concerns.

⁷ Let him drink and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.

⁸ Open your mouth for those with no voice, for the cause of all the dispossessed.

⁹ Open your mouth, judge righteously, and defend the cause of the poor and needy.

For He stands at the right hand of the needy one, to save him from the condemners of his soul.

⁷ He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the dump

⁸ to seat them with nobles, with the princes of His people.

³⁴ There were no needy ones among them, because those who owned lands or houses would sell their property, bring the proceeds from the sales,

³⁵ and lay them at the apostles’ feet for distribution to anyone as he had need.

¹ Then Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury,

² and He saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins.

Selling their possessions and goods, they shared with anyone who was in need.

Then one poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which amounted to a small fraction of a denarius.

² Some were saying, “We and our sons and daughters are numerous. We must get grain in order to eat and stay alive.”

³ Others were saying, “We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards, and our homes to get grain during the famine.”

⁴ Still others were saying, “We have borrowed money to pay the king’s tax on our fields and vineyards.

⁵ We and our children are just like our countrymen and their children, yet we are subjecting our sons and daughters to slavery. Some of our daughters are already enslaved, but we are powerless to redeem them because our fields and vineyards belong to others.”

They only asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do.

I know your affliction and your poverty—though you are rich! And I am aware of the slander of those who falsely claim to be Jews, but are in fact a synagogue of Satan.

To this very hour we are hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clothed, we are brutally treated, we are homeless.

²¹ For as you eat, each of you goes ahead without sharing his meal. While one remains hungry, another gets drunk.

²² Don’t you have your own homes in which to eat and drink? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What can I say to you? Shall I praise you for this? No, I will not!

So there was a great famine in Samaria. Indeed, they besieged the city so long that a donkey’s head sold for eighty shekels of silver, and a quarter cab of dove’s dung sold for five shekels of silver.

² And a man who was lame from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those entering the temple courts.

³ When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money.

Now a poor wise man was found in the city, and he saved the city by his wisdom. Yet no one remembered that poor man.

³ Whenever the Israelites would plant their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites, and other people of the east would come up and invade them,

⁴ encamping against them as far as Gaza and destroying the produce of the land. They left Israel with no sustenance, neither sheep nor oxen nor donkeys.

“Why wasn’t this perfume sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?”

The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have Me.”

So He replied, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.

For Macedonia and Achaia were pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem.

And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, “Please let me go into the fields and glean heads of grain after someone in whose sight I may find favor.” “Go ahead, my daughter,” Naomi replied.

When Ruth got up to glean, Boaz ordered his young men, “Even if she gathers among the sheaves, do not insult her.

And as she was going to get it, he called to her and said, “Please bring me a piece of bread.”