Colossians 4:1

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Colossians 4:1–3 · Berean Standard Bible

1 Masters, supply your slaves with what is right and fair, since you know that you also have a Master in heaven.

2 Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful,

3 as you pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains.

Greek words

Data created by STEPBible.org based on work at Tyndale House Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).

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Cross-references

The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge lists these related verses. Scripture text comes from the Berean Standard Bible.

Leviticus 19:13

You must not defraud your neighbor or rob him. You must not withhold until morning the wages due a hired hand.

Leviticus 25:39

If a countryman among you becomes destitute and sells himself to you, then you must not force him into slave labor.

Leviticus 25:40

Let him stay with you as a hired worker or temporary resident; he is to work for you until the Year of Jubilee.

Leviticus 25:41

Then he and his children are to be released, and he may return to his clan and to the property of his fathers.

Leviticus 25:42

Because the Israelites are My servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt, they are not to be sold as slaves.

Leviticus 25:43

You are not to rule over them harshly, but you shall fear your God.

Deuteronomy 15:12

If a fellow Hebrew, a man or a woman, is sold to you and serves you six years, then in the seventh year you must set him free.

Deuteronomy 15:13

And when you release him, do not send him away empty-handed.

Deuteronomy 15:14

You are to furnish him liberally from your flock, your threshing floor, and your winepress. You shall give to him as the LORD your God has blessed you.

Deuteronomy 15:15

Remember that you were slaves in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you; that is why I am giving you this command today.

Deuteronomy 24:14

Do not oppress a hired hand who is poor and needy, whether he is a brother or a foreigner residing in one of your towns.

Deuteronomy 24:15

You are to pay his wages each day before sunset, because he is poor and depends on them. Otherwise he may cry out to the LORD against you, and you will be guilty of sin.

Nehemiah 5:5

We and our children are just like our countrymen and their children, yet we are subjecting our sons and daughters to slavery. Some of our daughters are already enslaved, but we are powerless to redeem them because our fields and vineyards belong to others.”

Nehemiah 5:6

When I heard their outcry and these complaints, I became extremely angry,

Nehemiah 5:7

and after serious thought I rebuked the nobles and officials, saying, “You are exacting usury from your own brothers!” So I called a large assembly against them

Nehemiah 5:8

and said, “We have done our best to buy back our Jewish brothers who were sold to foreigners, but now you are selling your own brothers, that they may be sold back to us!” But they remained silent, for they could find nothing to say.

Nehemiah 5:9

So I continued, “What you are doing is not right. Shouldn’t you walk in the fear of our God to avoid the reproach of our foreign enemies?

Nehemiah 5:10

I, as well as my brothers and my servants, have been lending the people money and grain. Please, let us stop this usury.

Nehemiah 5:11

Please restore to them immediately their fields, vineyards, olive groves, and houses, along with the percentage of the money, grain, new wine, and oil that you have been assessing them.”

Nehemiah 5:12

“We will restore it,” they replied, “and will require nothing more from them. We will do as you say.” So I summoned the priests and required of the nobles and officials an oath that they would do what they had promised.

Nehemiah 5:13

I also shook out the folds of my robe and said, “May God likewise shake out of His house and possession every man who does not keep this promise. May such a man be shaken out and have nothing!” The whole assembly said, “Amen,” and they praised the LORD. And the people did as they had promised.

Job 24:11

They crush olives within their walls; they tread the winepresses, but go thirsty.

Job 24:12

From the city, men groan, and the souls of the wounded cry out, yet God charges no one with wrongdoing.

Job 31:13

If I have rejected the cause of my manservant or maidservant when they made a complaint against me,

Job 31:14

what will I do when God rises to judge? How will I answer when called to account?

Job 31:15

Did not He who made me in the womb also make them? Did not the same One form us in the womb?

Isaiah 58:3

“Why have we fasted, and You have not seen? Why have we humbled ourselves, and You have not noticed?” “Behold, on the day of your fast, you do as you please, and you oppress all your workers.

Isaiah 58:5

Is this the fast I have chosen: a day for a man to deny himself, to bow his head like a reed, and to spread out sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast and a day acceptable to the LORD?

Isaiah 58:6

Isn’t this the fast that I have chosen: to break the chains of wickedness, to untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and tear off every yoke?

Isaiah 58:7

Isn’t it to share your bread with the hungry, to bring the poor and homeless into your home, to clothe the naked when you see him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

Isaiah 58:8

Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will come quickly. Your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.

Isaiah 58:9

Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry out, and He will say, ‘Here I am.’ If you remove the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger and malicious talk,

Jeremiah 34:9

that each man should free his Hebrew slaves, both male and female, and no one should hold his fellow Jew in bondage.

Jeremiah 34:10

So all the officials and all the people who entered into this covenant agreed that they would free their menservants and maidservants and no longer hold them in bondage. They obeyed and released them,

Jeremiah 34:11

but later they changed their minds and took back the menservants and maidservants they had freed, and they forced them to become slaves again.

Jeremiah 34:12

Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,

Jeremiah 34:13

“This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I made a covenant with your forefathers when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, saying:

Jeremiah 34:14

Every seventh year, each of you must free his Hebrew brother who has sold himself to you. He may serve you six years, but then you must let him go free. But your fathers did not listen or incline their ear.

Jeremiah 34:15

Recently you repented and did what pleased Me; each of you proclaimed freedom for his neighbor. You made a covenant before Me in the house that bears My Name.

Jeremiah 34:16

But now you have changed your minds and profaned My name. Each of you has taken back the menservants and maidservants whom you had set at liberty to go wherever they wanted, and you have again forced them to be your slaves.

Jeremiah 34:17

Therefore this is what the LORD says: You have not obeyed Me; you have not proclaimed freedom, each man for his brother and for his neighbor. So now I proclaim freedom for you, declares the LORD—freedom to fall by sword, by plague, and by famine! I will make you a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.

Malachi 3:5

“Then I will draw near to you for judgment. And I will be a swift witness against sorcerers and adulterers and perjurers, against oppressors of the widowed and fatherless, and against those who defraud laborers of their wages and deny justice to the foreigner but do not fear Me,” says the LORD of Hosts.

James 2:13

For judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

James 5:4

Look, the wages you withheld from the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts.

Ecclesiastes 5:8

If you see the oppression of the poor and the denial of justice and righteousness in the province, do not be astonished at the matter; for one official is watched by a superior, and others higher still are over them.

Matthew 23:8

But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers.

Matthew 23:9

And do not call anyone on earth your father, for you have one Father, who is in heaven.

Matthew 24:48

But suppose that servant is wicked and says in his heart, ‘My master will be away a long time.’

Matthew 24:49

And he begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards.

Matthew 24:50

The master of that servant will come on a day he does not expect and at an hour he does not anticipate.

Matthew 24:51

Then he will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Luke 16:1

Jesus also said to His disciples, “There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions.

Luke 16:2

So he called him in to ask, ‘What is this I hear about you? Turn in an account of your management, for you cannot be manager any longer.’

Luke 16:3

The manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do, now that my master is taking away my position? I am too weak to dig and too ashamed to beg.

Luke 16:4

I know what I will do, so that after my removal from management, people will welcome me into their homes.’

Luke 16:5

And he called in each one of his master’s debtors. ‘How much do you owe my master?’ he asked the first.

Luke 16:6

‘A hundred measures of olive oil,’ he answered. ‘Take your bill,’ said the manager. ‘Sit down quickly, and write fifty.’

Luke 16:7

Then he asked another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ ‘A hundred measures of wheat,’ he replied. ‘Take your bill and write eighty,’ he told him.

Luke 16:8

The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the sons of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the sons of light.

Luke 16:9

I tell you, use worldly wealth to make friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, they will welcome you into eternal dwellings.

Luke 16:10

Whoever is faithful with very little will also be faithful with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.

Luke 16:11

So if you have not been faithful with worldly wealth, who will entrust you with true riches?

Luke 16:12

And if you have not been faithful with the belongings of another, who will give you belongings of your own?

Luke 16:13

No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

Luke 19:15

When he returned from procuring his kingship, he summoned the servants to whom he had given the money, to find out what each one had earned.

Ephesians 6:8

because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free.

Ephesians 6:9

And masters, do the same for your slaves. Give up your use of threats, because you know that He who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with Him.

Ephesians 6:10

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power.

Ephesians 6:11

Put on the full armor of God, so that you can make your stand against the devil’s schemes.

Ephesians 6:12

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this world’s darkness, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Ephesians 6:13

Therefore take up the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you will be able to stand your ground, and having done everything, to stand.

Ephesians 6:14

Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness arrayed,

Ephesians 6:15

and with your feet fitted with the readiness of the gospel of peace.

Ephesians 6:16

In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

Ephesians 6:17

And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Ephesians 6:18

Pray in the Spirit at all times, with every kind of prayer and petition. To this end, stay alert with all perseverance in your prayers for all the saints.

Ephesians 6:19

Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will boldly make known the mystery of the gospel,

Ephesians 6:20

for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it fearlessly, as I should.

Revelation 17:14

They will make war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will triumph over them, because He is Lord of lords and King of kings; and He will be accompanied by His called and chosen and faithful ones.”

Revelation 19:16

And He has a name written on His robe and on His thigh: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.