Nehemiah 5:1

⁷For the vineyard of the LORD of Armies is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant. He looked for justice, but behold, oppression, for righteousness, but behold, a cry of distress.

⁷If a poor man, one of your brothers, is with you within any of your gates in your land which the LORD your God gives you, you shall not harden your heart, nor shut your hand from your poor brother; ⁸but you shall surely open your hand to him, and shall surely lend him sufficient for his need, which he lacks. ⁹Beware that there not be a wicked thought in your heart, saying, “The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand,” and your eye be evil against your poor brother and you give him nothing; and he cry to the LORD against you, and it be sin to you. ¹⁰You shall surely give, and your heart shall not be grieved when you give to him, because it is for this thing the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you put your hand to. ¹¹For the poor will never cease out of the land. Therefore I command you to surely open your hand to your brother, to your needy, and to your poor, in your land.

⁷Won’t God avenge his chosen ones who are crying out to him day and night, and yet he exercises patience with them?

³⁸If my land cries out against me, and its furrows weep together; ³⁹if I have eaten its fruits without money, or have caused its owners to lose their life,

⁴Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you have kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of those who reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Armies.

³⁵“‘If your brother has become poor, and his hand can’t support himself among you, then you shall uphold him. He shall live with you like an alien and a temporary resident. ³⁶Take no interest from him or profit; but fear your God, that your brother may live among you. ³⁷You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit.

²⁸so that they caused the cry of the poor to come to him. He heard the cry of the afflicted.

⁶But brother goes to law with brother, and that before unbelievers! ⁷Therefore it is already altogether a defect in you that you have lawsuits one with another. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded? ⁸No, but you yourselves do wrong and defraud, and that against your brothers.

²⁶“The day following, he appeared to them as they fought, and urged them to be at peace again, saying, ‘Sirs, you are brothers. Why do you wrong one another?’

⁷The LORD said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows.