Bible verses about justice
The prophets are harder on religious people who ignore the poor than on anyone outside the faith, and they say so in the middle of describing worship God will not accept. These passages are set out with a sentence on each.
He has shown you, O man, what is good. What does Yahweh require of you, but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? — Micah 6:8 · WEB
The escalating offer runs from a calf to a firstborn child, and the answer replaces the whole scale with three things that cost nothing to buy.
But let justice roll on like rivers, and righteousness like a mighty stream. — Amos 5:24 · WEB
The worship God rejects is his own prescribed worship, and what he asks for instead is described as moving water.
Learn to do well. Seek justice. Relieve the oppressed. Defend the fatherless. Plead for the widow.” — Isaiah 1:17 · WEB
God says he cannot bear the worship he himself commanded, and names what is wrong with it in one clause.
“Isn’t this the fast that I have chosen: to release the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke? — Isaiah 58:6 · WEB
People complain that their fasting is going unnoticed, and are told what a fast God picked out.
Read the comment on Is Not This the Fast That I Have Chosen?
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to heal the broken hearted, to proclaim release to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind, to deliver those who are crushed, — Luke 4:18 · WEB
He reads his job description out of Isaiah in his hometown synagogue, and by the end of the sermon they are trying to kill him.
Open your mouth for the mute, in the cause of all who are left desolate. — Proverbs 31:8 · WEB
A queen mother teaches her son how to be a king, and what she tells him is to drink less and speak for people who cannot speak.
You shall follow that which is altogether just, that you may live and inherit the land which Yahweh your God gives you. — Deuteronomy 16:20 · WEB
Courts are to be set up in every town, and the three things forbidden to a judge all describe seeing the parties instead of the case.
“Defend the weak, the poor, and the fatherless. Maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. — Psalm 82:3 · WEB
Judges are addressed as gods, told what the job is, and informed that they will die like men.
“Thus has Yahweh of Armies spoken, saying, ‘Execute true judgment, and show kindness and compassion every man to his brother. — Zechariah 7:9 · WEB
A delegation asks whether to keep a fast, and the answer sets aside the question and asks who the fasting was ever for.
Yahweh says: “Execute justice and righteousness, and deliver him who is robbed out of the hand of the oppressor. Do no wrong. Do no violence to the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow. Don’t shed innocent blood in this place. — Jeremiah 22:3 · WEB
The dynasty is measured against a king they all remembered, and knowing God is defined in one clause as judging the cause of the poor.
“You shall not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits. — Exodus 23:6 · WEB
The court is protected from the crowd, from the bribe, and from sympathy for the poor, and a man's enemy is given the same care as his neighbor.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faith. But you ought to have done these, and not to have left the other undone. — Matthew 23:23 · WEB
The first woes: a door shut in people's faces, a convert made worse, oaths engineered to be broken, and tithed herbs.
Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. — James 1:27 · WEB
The word for religion appears six times in Scripture and three of them are here, and what it is made to mean is startlingly small.
Blessed are those who keep justice. Blessed is one who does what is right at all times. — Psalm 106:3 · WEB
The same history retold from the other side, by people who put themselves in it with the word we.
It is joy to the righteous to do justice; but it is a destruction to the workers of iniquity. — Proverbs 21:15 · WEB
The righteous care about justice for the poor. The wicked aren’t concerned about knowledge. — Proverbs 29:7 · WEB
Read the comment on When the Righteous Thrive, the People Rejoice