The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender.
Now the wife of one of the sons of the prophets cried to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the Lord, but the creditor has come to take my two children to be his slaves.”
And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made.
Whoever oppresses the poor to increase his own wealth, or gives to the rich, will only come to poverty.
The poor use entreaties, but the rich answer roughly.
Whoever oppresses a poor man insults his Maker, but he who is generous to the needy honors him.
But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court?
Do not rob the poor, because he is poor, or crush the afflicted at the gate,
Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you.
And there were those who said, “We have borrowed money for the king's tax on our fields and our vineyards. Now our flesh is as the flesh of our brothers, our children are as their children. Yet we are forcing our sons and our daughters to be slaves, and some of our daughters have already been enslaved, but it is not in our power to help it, for other men have our fields and our vineyards.”
that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and sell the chaff of the wheat?”
Hear this, you who trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end,
Therefore because you trample on the poor and you exact taxes of grain from him, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not dwell in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine. For I know how many are your transgressions and how great are your sins— you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and turn aside the needy in the gate.
“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!’
And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the slave, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the creditor, so with the debtor.
Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.
Thus says the Lord: “For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals—
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