Bible Verses About Rulers

Woe to those who are heroes in drinking wine and champions in mixing strong drink,

who acquit the guilty for a bribe and deprive the innocent of justice.

Woe to those who enact unjust statutes and issue oppressive decrees,

to deprive the poor of fair treatment and withhold justice from the oppressed of My people, to make widows their prey and orphans their plunder.

What will you do on the day of reckoning when devastation comes from afar? To whom will you flee for help? Where will you leave your wealth?

you will sing this song of contempt against the king of Babylon: How the oppressor has ceased, and how his fury has ended!

The LORD has broken the staff of the wicked, the scepter of the rulers.

It struck the peoples in anger with unceasing blows; it subdued the nations in rage with relentless persecution.

All the earth is at peace and at rest; they break out in song.

Even the cypresses and cedars of Lebanon exult over you: “Since you have been laid low, no woodcutter comes against us.”

Sheol beneath is eager to meet you upon your arrival. It stirs the spirits of the dead to greet you— all the rulers of the earth. It makes all the kings of the nations rise from their thrones.

They will all respond to you, saying, “You too have become weak, as we are; you have become like us!”

Your pomp has been brought down to Sheol, along with the music of your harps. Maggots are your bed and worms your blanket.

How you have fallen from heaven, O day star, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the ground, O destroyer of nations.

You said in your heart: “I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God. I will sit on the mount of assembly, in the far reaches of the north.

I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.”

But you will be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the Pit.

Those who see you will stare; they will ponder your fate: “Is this the man who shook the earth and made the kingdoms tremble,

who turned the world into a desert and destroyed its cities, who refused to let the captives return to their homes?”

All the kings of the nations lie in state, each in his own tomb.

But you are cast out of your grave like a rejected branch, covered by those slain with the sword, and dumped into a rocky pit like a carcass trampled underfoot.

You will not join them in burial, since you have destroyed your land and slaughtered your own people. The offspring of the wicked will never again be mentioned.

in loving devotion a throne will be established in the tent of David. A judge seeking justice and hastening righteousness will sit on it in faithfulness.

a spirit of justice to him who sits in judgment, and a strength to those who repel the onslaught at the gate.

Therefore hear the word of the LORD, O scoffers who rule this people in Jerusalem.