Luke 18:2

⁷The righteous care about justice for the poor. The wicked aren’t concerned about knowledge.

¹LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens! ²From the lips of babes and infants you have established strength, because of your adversaries, that you might silence the enemy and the avenger. ³When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have ordained, ⁴what is man, that you think of him? What is the son of man, that you care for him?

⁴He wouldn’t for a while; but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man,

⁶“‘“Behold, the princes of Israel, everyone according to his power, have been in you to shed blood. ⁷In you have they treated father and mother with contempt. ^[+] Among you they have oppressed the foreigner. In you they have wronged the fatherless and the widow. ⁸You have despised my holy things, and have profaned my Sabbaths.

¹I said, “Please listen, you heads of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel: Isn’t it for you to know justice? ²You who hate the good, and love the evil; who tear off their skin, and their flesh from off their bones; ³who also eat the flesh of my people, and peel their skin from off them, and break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as meat within the cauldron.

¹⁶He judged the cause of the poor and needy; so then it was well. Wasn’t this to know me?” says the LORD. ¹⁷But your eyes and your heart are only for your covetousness, for shedding innocent blood, for oppression, and for doing violence.”

⁷when I went out to the city gate, when I prepared my seat in the street. ⁸The young men saw me and hid themselves. The aged rose up and stood. ⁹The princes refrained from talking, and laid their hand on their mouth. ¹⁰The voice of the nobles was hushed, and their tongue stuck to the roof of their mouth. ¹¹For when the ear heard me, then it blessed me, and when the eye saw me, it commended me, ¹²because I delivered the poor who cried, and the fatherless also, who had no one to help him, ¹³the blessing of him who was ready to perish came on me, and I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy. ¹⁴I put on righteousness, and it clothed me. My justice was as a robe and a diadem. ¹⁵I was eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame. ¹⁶I was a father to the needy. I researched the cause of him whom I didn’t know. ¹⁷I broke the jaws of the unrighteous and plucked the prey out of his teeth.

¹⁴“Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.”¹⁵“Their feet are swift to shed blood. ¹⁶Destruction and misery are in their ways. ¹⁷The way of peace, they haven’t known.”¹⁸“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

²¹Moreover you shall provide out of all the people able men which fear God: men of truth, hating unjust gain; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. ²²Let them judge the people at all times. It shall be that every great matter they shall bring to you, but every small matter they shall judge themselves. So shall it be easier for you, and they shall share the load with you.

³Nevertheless there are good things found in you, in that you have put away the Asheroth out of the land, and have set your heart to seek God.”

⁴Jehoshaphat lived at Jerusalem; and he went out again among the people from Beersheba to the hill country of Ephraim, and brought them back to the LORD, the God of their fathers. ⁵He set judges in the land throughout all the fortified cities of Judah, city by city, ⁶and said to the judges, “Consider what you do, for you don’t judge for man, but for the LORD; and he is with you in the judgment. ⁷Now therefore let the fear of the LORD be on you. Take heed and do it; for there is no iniquity with the LORD our God, nor respect of persons, nor taking of bribes.”

⁸Moreover in Jerusalem Jehoshaphat appointed certain Levites, priests, and heads of the fathers’ households of Israel to give judgment for the LORD and for controversies. They returned to Jerusalem. ⁹He commanded them, saying, “You shall do this in the fear of the LORD, faithfully, and with a perfect heart.