Passages...

Old Testament...

Resources for Preaching, Bible Study, and Meditation

This list of scriptures is not intended to be comprehensive and will be periodically expanded.

I will sing to the Lord, for he has risen up in triumph; the horse and his rider he has hurled into the sea. --Exodus 15:1 NEB

The Lord is my refuge and my defense, he has shown himself my deliverer. --Exodus 15:2 NEB

You have seen with your eyes what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles' wings and broght you here to me. If only you will now listen to me and my covenant, then out of all peoples you shall become my special possession; for the whole earth is mine. You shall be my kingdom of priests, my holy nation. --Exodus 19:4-5

You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. --Exodus 22:21 RSV

You shall not ill-treat any widow or fatherless child. If you do, be sure that I will listen if they appeal to me. My anger will be roused and I will kill you with the sword. --Exodus 22:23-24 NEB

It was I who brought you up from the land of Egypt, I who led you in the wilderness forty years, to take possession of the land of the Amorites. --Amos 2:10 NEB

For you alone have I cared among all the nations of the world; therefore I will punish you. For all your iniquities. --Amos 3:2

For among my people there are wicked men…Their houses are full of fraud, as a cage is full of birds. They grow rich and grand, bloated and rancorous; their thoughts are all of evil, and they refuse to do justice, the claims of the orphan they do not put right nor do they grant justice to the poor. --Jeremiah 5:26-28 NEB

God has told you what is good; and what is it that the Lord asks of you? Only to act justly, to love loyalty, to walk wisely before your God. --Micah 6:8 NEB

Put away the evil of your deeds, away out of my sight. Cease to do evil and learn to do right, pursue justice and championed the oppressed; give the orphan his rights, plead the widows' cause. --Isaiah 1:16-17 NEB

May he have pity on the needy and the poor, deliver the poor from death; may he redeem them from oppression and violence and may their blood be precious in his eyes. --Psalm 72: 12-14 NEB

The Lord comes forward to argue his case and stands to judge his people. The Lord opens the indictment against the elders of his people and their officers: They have ravaged the vineyard, and the spoils of the poor are in your houses. Is it nothing to you that you crush my people and grind the faces of the poor? --Isaiah 3:13-15 NEB

He who is generous to the poor lends to the Lord. --Proverbs 19:17 NEB

He who oppresses the poor insults his Maker; he who is generous to the needy honors him. Proverbs 14:13 NEB

Do not move the ancient boundary-stone or encroach on the land of the orphans: they have a powerful guardian who will take their cause against you. --Proverbs 23:10-11 NEB

By the rivers of Babylon we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion. There on the willow-trees we hung up our harps, for there those who carried us off demanded music and singing, and our captors called on us to be merry: "Sing us one of the songs of Zion." How could we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land? --Psalm 137 NEB

Comfort, comfort my people; --it is the voice of your God; speak tenderly to Jerusalem and tell her this, that she has fulfilled her term of bondage, and that her penalty is paid; she has received at the Lord's hand double measure for all her sins. --Isaiah 40: 1-2 NEB

Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees ---and the writers who keep writing oppression to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people from their right. --Isaiah 10:2

And I will make justice the line--and righteousness the plummet. Then your covenant with death will be annulled and your agreement with Sheol will not stand. --Isaiah 28:17-18

… and the sojourner, the fatherless and the widow who are within your houses shall come and be filled; that the Lord your God may bless you and all the work of your hands that you do. --Deuteronomy 14:29

Give justice to the weak and the fatherless, --maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute, rescue the weak and the needy. --Psalm 82:3-4

Then the Lord said, "I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters; I know their sufferings and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians." --Exodus 3:7-8

They sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of shoes, they trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth. --Amos 2:7

You trample upon the poor and take from him exactions of wheat. --Amos 5:11

Thus says the Lord: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the fatherless and the widow. --Jeremiah 22:3-4

Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, --and his upper rooms by injustice. Did not your father eat and drink and do justice and righteousness? Then it was well with him. He judged the cause of the poor and the needy; then it was well. Is this not to know me? Says the Lord. --Jeremiah 22:13, 15-16

Is this not the fast I choose: --to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? --Isaiah 58:6-7

And shall your light break forth like the dawn, --and your healing shall spring up speedily; and your righteousness shall go before you and the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. --Isaiah 58:8

Take away from me the noise of your songs; --to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, And righteousness like a mighty stream. --Amos 5:23-24