Isaiah 3:5

⁵I will come near to you to judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against the perjurers, and against those who oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and who deprive the foreigner of justice, and don’t fear me,” says the LORD of Armies.

³“They bend their tongue, as their bow, for falsehood. They have grown strong in the land, but not for truth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they don’t know me,” says the LORD. ⁴“Everyone beware of his neighbor, and don’t trust in any brother; for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbor will go around like a slanderer. ⁵Friends deceive each other, and will not speak the truth. They have taught their tongue to speak lies. They weary themselves committing iniquity. ⁶Your habitation is in the middle of deceit. Through deceit, they refuse to know me,” says the LORD.

⁷Therefore the LORD of Armies says, “Behold, I will melt them and test them; for how should I deal with the daughter of my people? ⁸Their tongue is a deadly arrow. It speaks deceit. One speaks peaceably to his neighbor with his mouth, but in his heart, he waits to ambush him.

¹²In you have they taken bribes to shed blood. You have taken interest and increase, and you have greedily gained of your neighbors by oppression, and have forgotten me,” says the Lord GOD.

⁵When King David came to Bahurim, behold, a man of the family of Saul’s house came out, whose name was Shimei, the son of Gera. He came out and cursed as he came. ⁶He cast stones at David and at all the servants of King David, and all the people and all the mighty men were on his right hand and on his left. ⁷Shimei said when he cursed, “Be gone, be gone, you man of blood, and wicked fellow! ⁸The LORD has returned on you all the blood of Saul’s house, in whose place you have reigned! The LORD has delivered the kingdom into the hand of Absalom your son! Behold, you are caught by your own mischief, because you are a man of blood!”

⁹Then Abishai the son of Zeruiah said to the king, “Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Please let me go over and take off his head.”

²³He went up from there to Bethel. As he was going up by the way, some youths came out of the city and mocked him, and said to him, “Go up, you baldy! Go up, you baldy!”

¹⁷But your eyes and your heart are only for your covetousness, for shedding innocent blood, for oppression, and for doing violence.”

³²“‘You shall rise up before the gray head and honor the face of the elderly; and you shall fear your God. I am the LORD.

⁶⁴Having blindfolded him, they struck him on the face and asked him, “Prophesy! Who is the one who struck you?”

¹“But now those who are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I considered unworthy to put with my sheep dogs. ²Of what use is the strength of their hands to me, men in whom ripe age has perished? ³They are gaunt from lack and famine. They gnaw the dry ground, in the gloom of waste and desolation. ⁴They pluck salt herbs by the bushes. The roots of the broom tree are their food. ⁵They are driven out from among men. They cry after them as after a thief, ⁶so that they live in frightful valleys, and in holes of the earth and of the rocks. ⁷They bray among the bushes. They are gathered together under the nettles. ⁸They are children of fools, yes, children of wicked men. They were flogged out of the land. ⁹“Now I have become their song. Yes, I am a byword to them. ¹⁰They abhor me, they stand aloof from me, and don’t hesitate to spit in my face. ¹¹For he has untied his cord, and afflicted me; and they have thrown off restraint before me. ¹²On my right hand rise the rabble. They thrust aside my feet. They cast their ways of destruction up against me.

⁵There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, the sort of error which proceeds from the ruler. ⁶Folly is set in great dignity, and the rich sit in a low place. ⁷I have seen servants on horses, and princes walking like servants on the earth.