Proverbs 4:17

¹⁷“Stolen water is sweet. Food eaten in secret is pleasant.”

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.^5[+] You have lived in luxury on the earth, and taken your pleasure. You have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter.

¹⁷Fraudulent food is sweet to a man, but afterwards his mouth is filled with gravel.

¹²Her rich men are full of violence, her inhabitants speak lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their speech.

⁴Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread, and don’t call on the LORD?

⁴Hear this, you who desire to swallow up the needy, and cause the poor of the land to fail, ⁵saying, ‘When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may market wheat, making the ephah^[+] small, and the shekel^[+] and dealing falsely with balances of deceit; ⁶that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals, and sell the sweepings with the wheat?’”

³Her princes within her are roaring lions. Her judges are evening wolves. They leave nothing until the next day.

²⁶For wicked men are found among my people. They watch, as fowlers lie in wait. They set a trap. They catch men. ²⁷As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit. Therefore they have become great, and grew rich. 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.

¹³“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses, and as a pretense you make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation.

⁵The LORD says concerning the prophets who lead my people astray—for those who feed their teeth, they proclaim, “Peace!” and whoever doesn’t provide for their mouths, they prepare war against him: