Deuteronomy 15:7

The Message

When you happen on someone who’s in trouble or needs help among your people with whom you live in this land that God, your God, is giving you, don’t look the other way pretending you don’t see him. Don’t keep a tight grip on your purse. No. Look at him, open your purse, lend whatever and as much as he needs. Don’t count the cost. Don’t listen to that selfish voice saying, “It’s almost the seventh year, the year of All-Debts-Are-Canceled,” and turn aside and leave your needy neighbor in the lurch, refusing to help him. He’ll call God’s attention to you and your blatant sin.

Cross References

Nehemiah 5:1

A great protest was mounted by the people, including the wives, against their fellow Jews. Some said, “We have big families, and we need food just to survive.”

Exodus 22:25

“If you lend money to my people, to any of the down-and-out among you, don’t come down hard on them and gouge them with interest.

Proverbs 19:17

Mercy to the needy is a loan to God, and God pays back those loans in full.

Proverbs 21:13

If you stop your ears to the cries of the poor, your cries will go unheard, unanswered.

Leviticus 25:35

“If one of your brothers becomes indigent and cannot support himself, help him, the same as you would a foreigner or a guest so that he can continue to live in your neighborhood. Don’t gouge him with interest charges; out of reverence for your God help your brother to continue to live with you in the neighborhood. Don’t take advantage of his plight by running up big interest charges on his loans, and don’t give him food for profit. I am your God who brought you out of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.

Deuteronomy 24:14

Don’t abuse a laborer who is destitute and needy, whether he is a fellow Israelite or foreigner living in your land and in your city. Pay him at the end of each workday; he’s living from hand to mouth and needs it now. If you hold back his pay, he’ll protest to God and you’ll have sin on your books.