Justice

¹⁰ There are those who hate the one who reproves in the gate and despise him who speaks with integrity.

¹¹ Therefore, because you trample on the poor and exact from him a tax of grain, you will never live in the stone houses you have built; you will never drink the wine from the lush vineyards you have planted.

¹² For I know that your transgressions are many and your sins are numerous. You oppress the righteous by taking bribes; you deprive the poor of justice in the gate.

¹³ Therefore, the prudent keep silent in such times, for the days are evil.

¹⁴ Seek good, not evil, so that you may live. And the LORD, the God of Hosts, will be with you, as you have claimed.

¹⁵ Hate evil and love good; establish justice in the gate. Perhaps the LORD, the God of Hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.”

But let justice roll on like a river, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

¹⁸ You are to appoint judges and officials for your tribes in every town that the LORD your God is giving you. They are to judge the people with righteous judgment.

¹⁹ Do not deny justice or show partiality. Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous.

²⁰ Pursue justice, and justice alone, so that you may live, and you may possess the land that the LORD your God is giving you.

¹⁶ Wash and cleanse yourselves. Remove your evil deeds from My sight. Stop doing evil!

¹⁷ Learn to do right; seek justice and correct the oppressor. Defend the fatherless and plead the case of the widow.”

⁹ “This is what the LORD of Hosts says: ‘Administer true justice. Show loving devotion and compassion to one another.

¹⁰ Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. And do not plot evil in your hearts against one another.’

⁶ Then he said to the judges, “Consider carefully what you do, for you are not judging for man, but for the LORD, who is with you when you render judgment.

⁷ And now, may the fear of the LORD be upon you. Be careful what you do, for with the LORD our God there is no injustice or partiality or bribery.”

¹² If he is a poor man, you must not go to sleep with the security in your possession;

¹³ be sure to return it to him by sunset, so that he may sleep in his own cloak and bless you, and this will be credited to you as righteousness before the LORD your God.

¹⁴ Do not oppress a hired hand who is poor and needy, whether he is a brother or a foreigner residing in one of your towns.

¹⁵ You are to pay his wages each day before sunset, because he is poor and depends on them. Otherwise he may cry out to the LORD against you, and you will be guilty of sin.

¹⁶ Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin.

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

Sow for yourselves righteousness and reap the fruit of loving devotion; break up your unplowed ground. For it is time to seek the LORD until He comes and sends righteousness upon you like rain.

Isn’t this the fast that I have chosen: to break the chains of wickedness, to untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and tear off every yoke?

¹ Righteous are You, O LORD, when I plead before You. Yet about Your judgments I wish to contend with You: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease?

² You planted them, and they have taken root. They have grown and produced fruit. You are ever on their lips, but far from their hearts.

³ But You know me, O LORD; You see me and test my heart toward You. Drag away the wicked like sheep to the slaughter and set them apart for the day of carnage.

⁴ How long will the land mourn and the grass of every field be withered? Because of the evil of its residents, the animals and birds have been swept away, for the people have said, “He cannot see what our end will be.”

This is what the LORD says: Administer justice and righteousness. Rescue the victim of robbery from the hand of his oppressor. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow. Do not shed innocent blood in this place.

¹³ “Woe to him who builds his palace by unrighteousness, and his upper rooms without justice, who makes his countrymen serve without pay, and fails to pay their wages,

¹⁴ who says, ‘I will build myself a great palace, with spacious upper rooms.’ So he cuts windows in it, panels it with cedar, and paints it with vermilion.

¹⁵ Does it make you a king to excel in cedar? Did not your father have food and drink? He administered justice and righteousness, and so it went well with him.

¹⁶ 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.

¹⁷ “But your eyes and heart are set on nothing except your own dishonest gain, on shedding innocent blood, on practicing extortion and oppression.”

¹³ You must not defraud your neighbor or rob him. You must not withhold until morning the wages due a hired hand.

¹⁴ You must not curse the deaf or place a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God. I am the LORD.

¹⁵ You must not pervert justice; you must not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the rich; you are to judge your neighbor fairly.

He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?

²⁶ Many seek the ruler’s favor, but a man receives justice from the LORD.

²⁷ An unjust man is detestable to the righteous, and one whose way is upright is detestable to the wicked.

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.

¹ God presides in the divine assembly; He renders judgment among the gods:

² “How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Selah

³ Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; uphold the rights of the afflicted and oppressed.

⁴ Rescue the weak and needy; save them from the hand of the wicked.

²⁷ Then the king gave his ruling: “Give the living baby to the first woman. By no means should you kill him; she is his mother.”

²⁸ When all Israel heard of the judgment the king had given, they stood in awe of him, for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him to administer justice.

May the LORD judge between you and me, and may the LORD take vengeance on you, but my hand will never be against you.

¹⁵ May the LORD be our judge and decide between you and me. May He take notice and plead my case and deliver me from your hand.”

¹⁶ When David had finished saying these things, Saul called back, “Is that your voice, David my son?” Then Saul wept aloud

¹⁷ and said to David, “You are more righteous than I, for you have rewarded me with good, though I have rewarded you with evil.

At that time I charged your judges: “Hear the disputes between your brothers, and judge fairly between a man and his brother or a foreign resident.

Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and was unwilling to disgrace her publicly, he resolved to divorce her quietly.

“The daughters of Zelophehad speak correctly. You certainly must give them property as an inheritance among their father’s brothers, and transfer their father’s inheritance to them.

But the people said to Saul, “Must Jonathan die—he who accomplished such a great deliverance for Israel? Never! As surely as the LORD lives, not a hair of his head will fall to the ground, for with God’s help he has accomplished this today.” So the people rescued Jonathan, and he did not die.

⁹ But David answered Rechab and his brother Baanah, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, “As surely as the LORD lives, who has redeemed my life from all distress,

¹⁰ when someone told me, ‘Look, Saul is dead,’ and thought he was a bearer of good news, I seized him and put him to death at Ziklag. That was his reward for his news!

¹¹ How much more, when wicked men kill a righteous man in his own house and on his own bed, shall I not now require his blood from your hands and remove you from the earth!”

¹² So David commanded his young men, and they killed Rechab and Baanah. They cut off their hands and feet and hung their bodies by the pool in Hebron, but they took the head of Ish-bosheth and buried it in Abner’s tomb in Hebron.

¹⁵ Thus David reigned over all Israel and administered justice and righteousness for all his people:

¹⁶ Joab son of Zeruiah was over the army; Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud was the recorder;

As Paul expounded on righteousness, self-control, and the coming judgment, Felix became frightened and said, “You may go for now. When I find the time, I will call for you.”

²¹ I will go down to see if their actions fully justify the outcry that has reached Me. If not, I will find out.”

²² And the two men turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the LORD.

²³ Abraham stepped forward and said, “Will You really sweep away the righteous with the wicked?

“My lord the king, these men have acted wickedly in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet. They have dropped him into the cistern, where he will starve to death, for there is no more bread in the city.”

Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and decrees of the Lord.

⁶ When I heard their outcry and these complaints, I became extremely angry,

⁷ and after serious thought I rebuked the nobles and officials, saying, “You are exacting usury from your own brothers!” So I called a large assembly against them

⁸ and said, “We have done our best to buy back our Jewish brothers who were sold to foreigners, but now you are selling your own brothers, that they may be sold back to us!” But they remained silent, for they could find nothing to say.

And they cried out in a loud voice, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You avenge our blood and judge those who dwell upon the earth?”

² And I saw something like a sea of glass mixed with fire, beside which stood those who had conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name. They were holding harps from God,

³ and they sang the song of God’s servant Moses and of the Lamb: “Great and wonderful are Your works, O Lord God Almighty! Just and true are Your ways, O King of the nations!

⁴ Who will not fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before You, for Your righteous acts have been revealed.”

For His judgments are true and just. He has judged the great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her immorality. He has avenged the blood of His servants that was poured out by her hand.”

Then I saw heaven standing open, and there before me was a white horse. And its rider is called Faithful and True. With righteousness He judges and wages war.

³¹ When a man sins against his neighbor and is required to take an oath, and he comes to take an oath before Your altar in this temple,

³² then may You hear from heaven and act. May You judge Your servants, condemning the wicked man by bringing down on his own head what he has done, and justifying the righteous man by rewarding him according to his righteousness.

And the two scoundrels came in and sat opposite Naboth, and these men testified against him before the people, saying, “Naboth has cursed both God and the king!” So they took him outside the city and stoned him to death.

Tell him that this is what the LORD says: ‘Have you not murdered a man and seized his land?’ Then tell him that this is also what the LORD says: ‘In the place where the dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, there also the dogs will lick up your blood—yes, yours!’”

He took his life in his hands when he struck down the Philistine, and the LORD worked a great salvation for all Israel. You saw it and rejoiced, so why would you sin against innocent blood by killing David for no reason?”

¹⁶ This thing you have done is not good. As surely as the LORD lives, all of you deserve to die, since you did not protect your lord, the LORD’s anointed. Now look around. Where are the king’s spear and water jug that were by his head?”

¹⁷ Then Saul recognized David’s voice and asked, “Is that your voice, David my son?” “It is my voice, my lord and king,” David said.

¹⁸ And he continued, “Why is my lord pursuing his servant? What have I done? What evil is in my hand?