The Lord will enter into judgment with the elders and princes of his people: “It is you who have devoured the vineyard, the spoil of the poor is in your houses.
Is it for your fear of him that he reproves you and enters into judgment with you?
But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court?
“Hear this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to your husbands, ‘Bring, that we may drink!’
Like a cage full of birds, their houses are full of deceit; therefore they have become great and rich;
For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting; and he looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, an outcry!
the mighty man and the soldier, the judge and the prophet, the diviner and the elder, the captain of fifty and the man of rank, the counselor and the skillful magician and the expert in charms.
Enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you.
Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers who eat up my people as they eat bread and do not call upon the Lord?
(There are those who snatch the fatherless child from the breast, and they take a pledge against the poor.)
“Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country.
Can I forget any longer the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and the scant measure that is accursed?
They covet fields and seize them, and houses, and take them away; they oppress a man and his house, a man and his inheritance.
For God has no need to consider a man further, that he should go before God in judgment.
Some move landmarks; they seize flocks and pasture them. They drive away the donkey of the fatherless; they take the widow's ox for a pledge. They thrust the poor off the road; the poor of the earth all hide themselves. Behold, like wild donkeys in the desert the poor go out to their toil, seeking game; the wasteland yields food for their children. They gather their fodder in the field, and they glean the vineyard of the wicked man.
Unless otherwise indicated, all content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Contact me: openbibleinfo (at) gmail.com.