Scripture · Old Testament
Isaiah 1:23
Isaiah 1:23 is verse 23 of Isaiah chapter 1, shown here in the Berean Standard Bible.
Berean Standard Bible
Your rulers are rebels, friends of thieves. They all love bribes and chasing after rewards. They do not defend the fatherless, and the plea of the widow never comes before them.
King James Version
Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them.
World English Bible
Your princes are rebellious and companions of thieves. Everyone loves bribes and follows after rewards. They don’t defend the fatherless, neither does the cause of the widow come to them.
Read in context
Isaiah 1:21–25 · Berean Standard Bible
21 See how the faithful city has become a harlot! She once was full of justice; righteousness resided within her, but now only murderers!
22 Your silver has become dross; your fine wine is diluted with water.
23 Your rulers are rebels, friends of thieves. They all love bribes and chasing after rewards. They do not defend the fatherless, and the plea of the widow never comes before them.
24 Therefore the Lord GOD of Hosts, the Mighty One of Israel, declares: “Ah, I will be relieved of My foes and avenge Myself on My enemies.
25 I will turn My hand against you; I will thoroughly purge your dross; I will remove all your impurities.
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Cross-references
The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge lists these related verses. Scripture text comes from the Berean Standard Bible.
Isaiah 3:14The LORD brings this charge against the elders and leaders of His people: “You have devoured the vineyard; the plunder of the poor is in your houses.
2 Chronicles 24:17After the death of Jehoiada, however, the officials of Judah came and paid homage to the king, and he listened to them.
2 Chronicles 24:18They abandoned the house of the LORD, the God of their fathers, and served the Asherah poles and idols. So wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this guilt of theirs.
2 Chronicles 24:19Nevertheless, the LORD sent prophets to bring the people back to Him and to testify against them; but they would not listen.
2 Chronicles 24:20Then the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah son of Jehoiada the priest, who stood up before the people and said to them, “This is what God says: ‘Why do you transgress the commandments of the LORD so that you cannot prosper? Because you have forsaken the LORD, He has forsaken you.’”
2 Chronicles 24:21But they conspired against Zechariah, and by order of the king, they stoned him in the courtyard of the house of the LORD.
2 Chronicles 36:14Furthermore, all the leaders of the priests and the people multiplied their unfaithful deeds, following all the abominations of the nations, and they defiled the house of the LORD, which He had consecrated in Jerusalem.
Jeremiah 5:5I will go to the powerful and speak to them. Surely they know the way of the LORD, the justice of their God.” But they too, with one accord, had broken the yoke and torn off the chains.
Ezekiel 22:6See how every prince of Israel within you has used his power to shed blood.
Ezekiel 22:7Father and mother are treated with contempt. Within your walls the foreign resident is exploited, the fatherless and the widow are oppressed.
Ezekiel 22:8You have despised My holy things and profaned My Sabbaths.
Ezekiel 22:9Among you are slanderous men bent on bloodshed; within you are those who eat on the mountain shrines and commit acts of indecency.
Ezekiel 22:10In you they have uncovered the nakedness of their fathers; in you they violate women during their menstrual impurity.
Ezekiel 22:11One man commits an abomination with his neighbor’s wife; another wickedly defiles his daughter-in-law; and yet another violates his sister, his own father’s daughter.
Ezekiel 22:12In you they take bribes to shed blood. You engage in usury, take excess interest, and extort your neighbors. But Me you have forgotten, declares the Lord GOD.
Daniel 9:5we have sinned and done wrong. We have acted wickedly and rebelled. We have turned away from Your commandments and ordinances.
Daniel 9:6We have not listened to Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings, leaders, and fathers, and to all the people of the land.
Hosea 7:3They delight the king with their evil, and the princes with their lies.
Hosea 7:4They are all adulterers, like an oven heated by a baker who needs not stoke the fire from the kneading to the rising of the dough.
Hosea 7:5The princes are inflamed with wine on the day of our king; so he joins hands with those who mock him.
Hosea 9:15All their evil appears at Gilgal, for there I hated them. I will drive them from My house for the wickedness of their deeds. I will no longer love them; all their leaders are rebellious.
Micah 3:1Then I said: “Hear now, O leaders of Jacob, you rulers of the house of Israel. Should you not know justice?
Micah 3:2You hate good and love evil. You tear the skin from my people and strip the flesh from their bones.
Micah 3:3You eat the flesh of my people after stripping off their skin and breaking their bones. You chop them up like flesh for the cooking pot, like meat in a cauldron.”
Micah 3:11Her leaders judge for a bribe, her priests teach for a price, and her prophets practice divination for money. Yet they lean upon the LORD, saying, “Is not the LORD among us? No disaster can come upon us.”
Acts 4:5The next day the rulers, elders, and scribes assembled in Jerusalem,
Acts 4:6along with Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, Alexander, and many others from the high priest’s family.
Acts 4:7They had Peter and John brought in and began to question them: “By what power or what name did you do this?”
Acts 4:8Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers and elders of the people!
Acts 4:9If we are being examined today about a kind service to a man who was lame, to determine how he was healed,
Acts 4:10then let this be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed.
Acts 4:11This Jesus is ‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.’
Proverbs 29:24A partner to a thief hates his own soul; he receives the oath, but does not testify.
Matthew 21:13And He declared to them, “It is written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer.’ But you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”
Mark 11:17Then Jesus began to teach them, and He declared, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’”
Luke 19:46He declared to them, “It is written: ‘My house will be a house of prayer.’ But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’”
Isaiah 33:15He who walks righteously and speaks with sincerity, who refuses gain from extortion, whose hand never takes a bribe, who stops his ears against murderous plots and shuts his eyes tightly against evil—
Exodus 23:8Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see and twists the words of the righteous.
Deuteronomy 16:19Do not deny justice or show partiality. Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous.
Proverbs 17:23A wicked man takes a covert bribe to subvert the course of justice.
Jeremiah 22:17“But your eyes and heart are set on nothing except your own dishonest gain, on shedding innocent blood, on practicing extortion and oppression.”
Hosea 4:18When their liquor is gone, they turn to prostitution; their rulers dearly love disgrace.
Micah 7:3Both hands are skilled at evil; the prince and the judge demand a bribe. When the powerful utters his evil desire, they all conspire together.
Isaiah 10:1Woe to those who enact unjust statutes and issue oppressive decrees,
Isaiah 10:2to deprive the poor of fair treatment and withhold justice from the oppressed of My people, to make widows their prey and orphans their plunder.
Jeremiah 5:28They have grown fat and sleek, and have excelled in the deeds of the wicked. They have not taken up the cause of the fatherless, that they might prosper; nor have they defended the rights of the needy.
Jeremiah 5:29Should I not punish them for these things?” declares the LORD. “Should I not avenge Myself on such a nation as this?
Zechariah 7:10Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. And do not plot evil in your hearts against one another.’
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.
Luke 18:2“In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected men.
Luke 18:3And there was a widow in that town who kept appealing to him, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’
Luke 18:4For a while he refused, but later he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect men,
Luke 18:5yet because this widow keeps pestering me, I will give her justice. Then she will stop wearing me out with her perpetual requests.’”