On your clothes is found the lifeblood of the innocent poor, though you did not catch them breaking in. Yet in spite of all this

I thought, “These are only the poor; they are foolish, for they do not know the way of the Lord, the requirements of their God.

and have grown fat and sleek. Their evil deeds have no limit; they do not seek justice. They do not promote the case of the fatherless; they do not defend the just cause of the poor.

He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?” declares the Lord.

But Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard left behind in the land of Judah some of the poor people, who owned nothing; and at that time he gave them vineyards and fields.

Gedaliah Assassinated

When all the army officers and their men who were still in the open country heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah son of Ahikam as governor over the land and had put him in charge of the men, women and children who were the poorest in the land and who had not been carried into exile to Babylon,

Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard carried into exile some of the poorest people and those who remained in the city, along with the rest of the craftsmen and those who had deserted to the king of Babylon.

But Nebuzaradan left behind the rest of the poorest people of the land to work the vineyards and fields.