"Do not rob or take advantage of anyone. Do not hold back the wages of someone you have hired, not even for one night.

"Do not cheat poor and needy hired servants, whether they are Israelites or foreigners living in one of your towns.

Each day before sunset pay them for that day's work; they need the money and have counted on getting it. If you do not pay them, they will cry out against you to the LORD, and you will be guilty of sin.

But the poor must go out with no clothes to protect them; they must go hungry while harvesting wheat.

They press olives for oil, and grapes for wine, but they themselves are thirsty.

If I have stolen the land I farm and taken it from its rightful owners---

if I have eaten the food that grew there but let the farmers that grew it starve---

Israel is the vineyard of the LORD Almighty; the people of Judah are the vines he planted. He expected them to do what was good, but instead they committed murder. He expected them to do what was right, but their victims cried out for justice.

Doomed is the one who builds his house by injustice and enlarges it by dishonesty; who makes his people work for nothing and does not pay their wages.

Even the stones of the walls cry out against you, and the rafters echo the cry.

The LORD Almighty says, "I will appear among you to judge, and I will testify at once against those who practice magic, against adulterers, against those who give false testimony, those who cheat employees out of their wages, and those who take advantage of widows, orphans, and foreigners---against all who do not respect me.

Masters, be fair and just in the way you treat your slaves. Remember that you too have a Master in heaven.

Then the LORD said, "Why have you done this terrible thing? Your brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground, like a voice calling for revenge.

Years later the king of Egypt died, but the Israelites were still groaning under their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry went up to God,

who heard their groaning and remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

I have indeed heard the cry of my people, and I see how the Egyptians are oppressing them.

Do not mistreat any widow or orphan.

and I will become angry and kill you in war. Your wives will become widows, and your children will be fatherless.

Each day before sunset pay them for that day's work; they need the money and have counted on getting it. If you do not pay them, they will cry out against you to the LORD, and you will be guilty of sin.

They forced the poor to cry out to God, and he heard their calls for help.

God remembers those who suffer; he does not forget their cry, and he punishes those who wrong them.

Now, will God not judge in favor of his own people who cry to him day and night for help? Will he be slow to help them?

It is as Isaiah had said before, "If the Lord Almighty had not left us some descendants, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah."

If the LORD Almighty had not let some of the people survive, Jerusalem would have been totally destroyed, just as Sodom and Gomorrah were.