31 Bible Verses about Unjust Laws

Acts 5:29 ESV / 8 helpful votes

But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men.

Isaiah 10:1 ESV / 8 helpful votes

Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees, and the writers who keep writing oppression,

Leviticus 19:15 ESV / 6 helpful votes

“You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor.

Romans 4:1-25 ESV / 4 helpful votes

What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, ...

Ezekiel 16:49 ESV / 4 helpful votes

Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.

Isaiah 1:17 ESV / 4 helpful votes

Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause.

Romans 13:1-7 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience. ...

Romans 13:1-14 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience. ...

Romans 12:1-2 ESV / 3 helpful votes

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Acts 4:19 ESV / 3 helpful votes

But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge,

Isaiah 10:1-34 ESV / 3 helpful votes

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 of their right, that widows may be their spoil, and that they may make the fatherless their prey! What will you do on the day of punishment, in the ruin that will come from afar? To whom will you flee for help, and where will you leave your wealth? Nothing remains but to crouch among the prisoners or fall among the slain. For all this his anger has not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still. Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger; the staff in their hands is my fury! ...

Leviticus 25:1-55 ESV / 3 helpful votes

The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land that I give you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to the Lord. For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruits, but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You shall not reap what grows of itself in your harvest, or gather the grapes of your undressed vine. It shall be a year of solemn rest for the land. ...

1 Corinthians 7:5 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

John 14:15 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Matthew 19:9 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”

Matthew 18:15-17 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

Matthew 6:24 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

Matthew 5:42 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.

Matthew 5:1-48 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. ...

Obadiah 1:4 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Though you soar aloft like the eagle, though your nest is set among the stars, from there I will bring you down, declares the Lord.

Isaiah 45:1 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped, to subdue nations before him and to loose the belts of kings, to open doors before him that gates may not be closed:

Proverbs 24:21 ESV / 2 helpful votes

My son, fear the Lord and the king, and do not join with those who do otherwise,

Psalm 140:12 ESV / 2 helpful votes

I know that the Lord will maintain the cause of the afflicted, and will execute justice for the needy.

Deuteronomy 21:18-21 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they discipline him, will not listen to them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, and they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

Exodus 22:25 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“If you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor, you shall not be like a moneylender to him, and you shall not exact interest from him.

Exodus 21:1-36 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“Now these are the rules that you shall set before them. When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing. If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out alone. But if the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’ ...

Galatians 3:28 ESV / 1 helpful vote

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

1 Corinthians 7:10 ESV / 1 helpful vote

To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband

1 Corinthians 6:1 ESV / 1 helpful vote

When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints?

Proverbs 29:7 ESV / 1 helpful vote

A righteous man knows the rights of the poor; a wicked man does not understand such knowledge.

Nehemiah 5:1-19 ESV / 1 helpful vote

Now there arose a great outcry of the people and of their wives against their Jewish brothers. For there were those who said, “With our sons and our daughters, we are many. So let us get grain, that we may eat and keep alive.” There were also those who said, “We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards, and our houses to get grain because of the famine.” 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.” ...

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