Proverbs 29:7

¹⁶I was a father to the needy. I researched the cause of him whom I didn’t know.

¹Blessed is he who considers the poor. The LORD will deliver him in the day of evil.

¹³Whoever stops his ears at the cry of the poor, he will also cry out, but shall not be heard.

⁸Open your mouth for the mute, in the cause of all who are left desolate. ⁹Open your mouth, judge righteously, and serve justice to the poor and needy.”

¹Brothers, even if a man is caught in some fault, you who are spiritual must restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, looking to yourself so that you also aren’t tempted.

⁹When David’s young men came, they spoke to Nabal all those words in the name of David, and waited.

¹⁰Nabal answered David’s servants and said, “Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants who break away from their masters these days. ¹¹Shall I then take my bread, my water, and my meat that I have killed for my shearers, and give it to men who I don’t know where they come from?”

²⁹The people of the land have used oppression and exercised robbery. Yes, they have troubled the poor and needy, and have oppressed the foreigner wrongfully.

³⁰“I sought for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I would not destroy it; but I found no one. ³¹Therefore I have poured out my indignation on them. I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath. I have brought their own way on their heads,” says the Lord GOD.

¹³“If I have despised the cause of my male servant or of my female servant, when they contended with me,

²⁸They have grown fat. They shine; yes, they excel in deeds of wickedness. They don’t plead the cause, the cause of the fatherless, that they may prosper; and they don’t defend the rights of the needy.

¹⁵“Should you reign because you strive to excel in cedar? Didn’t your father eat and drink, and do justice and righteousness? Then it was well with him. 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.”