All my bones shall say, LORD, who is like you, who delivers the poor from him that is too strong for him, yea, the poor and the needy from him that plunders him?
The people of the land have used oppression, and committed robbery, and have troubled the poor and needy: yea, they have oppressed the stranger wrongfully.
The good man has perished out of the earth, and there is none upright among men: they all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net.
You struck through with his rods the chief of his villages: they came out as a whirlwind to scatter me: their rejoicing was as to devour the poor secretly.
There is a voice of the howling of the shepherds; for their glory is destroyed: a voice of the roaring of young lions; for the pride of Jordan is laid waste.
But he who is a hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep, and flees: and the wolf catches them, and scatters the sheep.
But do not yield to them: for there lie in wait for him more than forty men of them, who have bound themselves with an oath, that they will neither eat nor drink till they have killed him: and now are they ready, looking for a promise from you.