Proverbs 22:7
New Living Translation
7 Just as the rich rule the poor,
so the borrower is servant to the lender.
Proverbs 18:23
New Living Translation
23 The poor plead for mercy;
the rich answer with insults.
James 2:6
New Living Translation
6 But you dishonor the poor! Isn’t it the rich who oppress you and drag you into court?
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Proverbs 22:22
New Living Translation
22 Don’t rob the poor just because you can,
or exploit the needy in court.
Proverbs 22:16
New Living Translation
16 A person who gets ahead by oppressing the poor
or by showering gifts on the rich will end in poverty.
2 Kings 4:1
New Living Translation
Elisha Helps a Poor Widow
4 One day the widow of a member of the group of prophets came to Elisha and cried out, “My husband who served you is dead, and you know how he feared the Lord. But now a creditor has come, threatening to take my two sons as slaves.”
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James 5:1
New Living Translation
Warning to the Rich
5 Look here, you rich people: Weep and groan with anguish because of all the terrible troubles ahead of you.
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Matthew 18:25
New Living Translation
25 He couldn’t pay, so his master ordered that he be sold—along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned—to pay the debt.
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Proverbs 14:31
New Living Translation
31 Those who oppress the poor insult their Maker,
but helping the poor honors him.
Nehemiah 5:4-5
New Living Translation
4 And others said, “We have had to borrow money on our fields and vineyards to pay our taxes. 5 We belong to the same family as those who are wealthy, and our children are just like theirs. Yet we must sell our children into slavery just to get enough money to live. We have already sold some of our daughters, and we are helpless to do anything about it, for our fields and vineyards are already mortgaged to others.”
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Amos 8:6
New Living Translation
6 And you mix the grain you sell
with chaff swept from the floor.
Then you enslave poor people
for one piece of silver or a pair of sandals.
Amos 8:4
New Living Translation
4 Listen to this, you who rob the poor
and trample down the needy!
Amos 5:11-12
New Living Translation
11 You trample the poor,
stealing their grain through taxes and unfair rent.
Therefore, though you build beautiful stone houses,
you will never live in them.
Though you plant lush vineyards,
you will never drink wine from them.
12 For I know the vast number of your sins
and the depth of your rebellions.
You oppress good people by taking bribes
and deprive the poor of justice in the courts.
Amos 4:1
New Living Translation
Israel’s Failure to Learn
4 Listen to me, you fat cows[a]
living in Samaria,
you women who oppress the poor
and crush the needy,
and who are always calling to your husbands,
“Bring us another drink!”
Footnotes
- 4:1 Hebrew you cows of Bashan.
Amos 2:6
New Living Translation
6 This is what the Lord says:
“The people of Israel have sinned again and again,
and I will not let them go unpunished!
They sell honorable people for silver
and poor people for a pair of sandals.
Isaiah 24:2
New Living Translation
2 Priests and laypeople,
servants and masters,
maids and mistresses,
buyers and sellers,
lenders and borrowers,
bankers and debtors—none will be spared.
James 5:4
New Living Translation
4 For listen! Hear the cries of the field workers whom you have cheated of their pay. The cries of those who harvest your fields have reached the ears of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
Read full chapterHoly Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.