You will not be led into wrong-doing by the majority nor,
when giving evidence in a lawsuit, side with the majority to pervert the course
of justice; 3 nor
will you show partiality to the poor in a lawsuit.
***
You will not cheat the poor among you of their rights at law.
7 Keep
clear of fraud. Do not cause the death of the innocent or upright, and do not
acquit the guilty. 8 You
will accept no bribes, for a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and is the ruin of
the cause of the upright.
You will not be unjust in administering justice. You will
neither be partial to the poor nor overawed by the great, but will administer
justice to your fellow-citizen justly.
You must give your brothers a fair hearing and see justice
done between one person and his brother or the foreigner living with him. 17 You
must be impartial in judgment and give an equal hearing to small and great
alike. Do not be afraid of any human person, for the verdict is God's.
You must appoint judges and scribes in each of the towns that
Yahweh your God is giving you, for all your tribes; these are to mete out proper
justice to the people. 19 You must not pervert the law; you must be impartial; you
will take no bribes, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and ruins the cause of
the upright.20 Strict
justice must be your ideal, so that you may live long in possession of the
country given you by Yahweh your God.
You will not exploit one another, but fear your
God, for I am Yahweh your God.
David ruled over all Israel, administering law and justice to
all his people.
He also appointed judges in the country in every one of the
fortified towns of Judah,6 saying to the judges, 'Be careful what you do, since you are
judging not by any human power but in the name of Yahweh, who will be with you
when you pronounce sentence. 7 This being so, let fear of Yahweh govern you; be careful what you do, for Yahweh our God will not tolerate
malpractice, partiality or the taking of bribes.'
God, endow the king with your own fair
judgment, the son of the king with your own saving justice, 2 that he may rule your people with justice, and your poor with
fair judgment.
He will judge the poor of the people, he will save the
children of the needy and crush their oppressors.
For he rescues the needy who calls to him, and
the poor who has no one to help.
He has pity on the weak and the needy, and
saves the needy from death.
14 From oppression and violence
he redeems their lives, their blood is precious in
his sight.
How much longer will you give unjust judgments and uphold the
prestige of the wicked? 3 Let the weak and the orphan have justice, be fair to the
wretched and the destitute. 4 Rescue the weak and the needy, save them from the clutches
of the wicked.
To absolve the guilty and condemn the upright,
both alike are abhorrent to Yahweh.
It is not good to show partiality for the wicked and so to
deprive the upright when giving judgment.
A wise king winnows the wicked and makes the
wheel pass over them.
Whoever sows injustice reaps disaster
Do not despoil the weak, for he is
weak, and do not oppress the poor at the gate, 23for Yahweh takes up their cause, and extorts the life of
their extortioners.
Save those being dragged towards death, but can you rescue
those on their way to execution? 12 If you say, 'But look, we did not know,' will the Weigher of
the heart pay no attention? Will not the Guardian of your soul be aware and
repay you as your deeds deserve?
Whoever tells the wicked, 'You are upright,' peoples curse
him, nations revile him;25 but those who correct him, come out of it well, on them will
come a happy blessing.
It is not good to show partiality, but people will do wrong
for a mouthful of bread.
The king who judges the weak with equity sees his throne set
firm for ever.
Do not expend your energy on women nor your wealth on those
who ruin kings. 4 Not
for kings, O Lemuel, not for kings the drinking of wine, not for princes the
love of liquor,5 for
fear that in liquor they forget what they have decreed and pervert the course
of justice against all the poor.
Make your views heard, on behalf of the dumb, on behalf of
all the unwanted; 9 make
your views heard, pronounce an upright verdict, defend the cause of the poor
and the wretched.
Save the oppressed from the hand of the
oppressor, and do not be mean-spirited in your judgments.
Learn to do good, search for justice,
discipline the violent, be just to the orphan, plead for the widow.
Your princes are rebels, accomplices of brigands. All of them
greedy for presents and eager for bribes, they show no justice to the orphan,
and the widow's cause never reaches them. 24 Hence, the Lord Yahweh Sabaoth, the Mighty One of Israel,
says this, 'Disaster, I shall get the better of my enemies, I shall avenge
myself on my foes. 25 'I
shall turn my hand against you, I shall purge your dross as though with potash,
I shall remove all your alloy.
Woe to those … 23 who acquit the guilty for a bribe and deny
justice to the upright.
Woe to those who enact unjust decrees, who compose oppressive
legislation 2 to
deny justice to the weak and to cheat the humblest of my people of fair
judgment, to make widows their prey and to rob the orphan.
3 What
will you do on the day of punishment, when disaster comes from far away? To
whom will you run for help and where will you leave your riches, 4 to
avoid squatting among the captives or falling among the slain? After all this,
his anger is not spent. No, his hand is still raised!
His inspiration will lie in fearing Yahweh. His judgment will
not be by appearances. his verdict not given on hearsay. 4 He
will judge the weak with integrity and give fair sentence for the humblest in
the land. He will strike the country with the rod of his mouth and with the
breath of his lips bring death to the wicked. 5 Uprightness will be the
belt around his waist, and constancy the belt about his hips.
The throne will be made secure in faithful love and on it
will sit in constancy within the tent of David, a judge seeking fair judgment
and pursuing uprightness.
Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom my
soul delights. I have sent my spirit upon him, he will bring fair judgment to
the nations. 2 He
does not cry out or raise his voice, his voice is not heard in the street; 3 he
does not break the crushed reed or snuff the faltering wick. Faithfully he
presents fair judgment; 4 he will not grow faint, he will not be crushed until he has
established fair judgment on earth, and the coasts and islands are waiting for
his instruction.
Is not this the sort of fast that pleases me: to break unjust
fetters, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to
break all yokes?
Thus says Yahweh: Make fair judgment your concern, act with
justice, for soon my salvation will come and my saving justice be manifest. 2
Blessed is anyone who does this, anyone who clings to it… abstaining from every
evil deed.
They are fat, they are sleek, in wickedness they go to any
lengths: they have no respect for rights, for orphans' rights, and yet they
succeed! They have not upheld the cause of the needy. 29
Shall I fail to punish this, Yahweh demands, or on such a nation to exact
vengeance?
Do not put
your faith in delusive words, such as: This is
Yahweh's sanctuary, Yahweh's sanctuary, Yahweh's sanctuary! 5But
if you really amend your behavior and your actions, if you really treat one
another fairly,6if you do not exploit the stranger,
the orphan and the widow, if you do not shed innocent blood in this place and
if you do not follow other gods, to your own ruin,7then
I shall let you stay in this place, in the country I gave for ever to your
ancestors of old.
Yahweh says
this: Each morning give fair judgement, rescue anyone who has been wronged from
the hands of his oppressor, or else my wrath will leap out like a
fire, it will burn and no one will be able to quench it,
because of the wickedness of your actions.
Yahweh says this: Act
uprightly and justly; rescue from the hands of the oppressor anyone who has
been wronged, do not exploit or ill-treat the stranger, the orphan, the widow;
shed no innocent blood in this place.
Look, the days are coming, Yahweh declares, when I shall
raise an upright Branch for David; he will reign as king and be wise, doing
what is just and upright in the country.
In you people take bribes for shedding blood; you lend for
profit and charge interest, you profit from your fellow by extortion and have
forgotten about me -- declares the Lord Yahweh. 13 "Now I shall clap my
hands at your acts of banditry and the blood that flows in you. 14 Will
your heart be able to resist, will your hands be steady, the day when I call
you to account? I, Yahweh, have spoken and shall act. 15 I
shall scatter you among the nations and disperse you in foreign countries, and
so put an end to the filthiness now inside you; 16 through your own fault, you
will be profaned in the eyes of the nations, and you will know that I am
Yahweh!" '
Yahweh says this: For the three crimes, the four crimes of
Israel, I have made my decree and will not relent: because they have sold the
upright for silver and the poor for a pair of sandals, 7
because they have crushed the heads of the weak into the dust and thrust the
rights of the oppressed to one side, father and son sleeping with the same girl
and thus profaning my holy name, 8 lying down beside every altar on clothes acquired as
pledges, and drinking the wine of the people they have fined in the house of
their god.
They turn justice into wormwood and throw uprightness to the
ground.
They hate the man who teaches justice at the city gate and
detest anyone who declares the truth.
For trampling on the poor man and for extorting levies on his
wheat: although you have built houses of dressed stone, you will not live in
them; although you have planted pleasant vineyards, you will not drink wine
from them: 12 for
I know how many your crimes are and how outrageous your sins, you oppressors of
the upright, who hold people to ransom and thrust the poor aside at the gates.
Hate evil, love good, let justice reign at the city gate: it
may be that Yahweh, God Sabaoth, will take pity on the remnant of Joseph.
Let justice flow like water, and uprightness like a never-failing
stream!
Kindly listen to this, you leaders of the House of Jacob, you
princes of the House of Israel, who detest justice, wresting it from its honest
course, 10 who
build Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity! 11 Her
leaders give verdicts for presents, her priests take a fee for their rulings,
her prophets divine for money and yet they rely on Yahweh! 'Isn't Yahweh among
us?' they say, 'No disaster is going to overtake us.'12 That
is why, thanks to you, Zion will become plough land, Jerusalem a heap of rubble
and the Temple Mount a wooded height.
You have been told, O mortal, what is
good, and what the Lord requires of you: Only to do justice and to
love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God.
Do you not
know the words which Yahweh proclaimed through the prophets in the
past, when Jerusalem was
inhabited and secure, as were her surrounding towns, and when the Negeb and the
lowlands were inhabited?" ' (8The word of Yahweh was addressed to Zechariah as follows,9'Yahweh Sabaoth says this.) He said, "Apply the law fairly,
and show faithful love and compassion towards one another.
When the town clerk eventually succeeded in calming the
crowd, he said, 'Citizens of Ephesus! Is there anybody who does not know that
the city of the Ephesians is the guardian of the temple of great Diana and of
her statue that fell from heaven? 36 Nobody can contradict this and there is no need for you to
get excited or do anything rash. 37 These men you have brought here are not guilty of any
sacrilege or blasphemy against our goddess.
38 If
Demetrius and the craftsmen he has with him want to complain about anyone,
there are the assizes and the proconsuls; let them take the case to court. 39 And
if you want to ask any more questions you must raise them in the regular
assembly. 40 We
could easily be charged with rioting for today's happenings: there is no ground
for it all, and we can give no justification for this gathering.' When he had
finished this speech he dismissed the assembly.
Magistrates bring fear not to those who do good, but to those
who do evil. So if you want to live with no fear of authority, live honestly
and you will have its approval; 4 it is there to serve God for you and for your good. But if
you do wrong, then you may well be afraid; because it is not for nothing that
the symbol of authority is the sword: it is there to serve God, too, as his
avenger, to bring retribution to wrongdoers.
Masters, make sure that your slaves are given what is upright
and fair, knowing that you too have a Master in heaven.
For the sake of the Lord, accept the authority
of every human institution: the emperor, as the supreme authority, 14 and the governors as commissioned by him to punish criminals
and praise those who do good.
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