Bible Verses About Rulers: Wicked

ADONAI said to Avram, "Know this for certain: your descendants will be foreigners in a land that is not theirs. They will be slaves and held in oppression there four hundred years.

But I will also judge that nation, the one that makes them slaves. Afterwards, they will leave with many possessions.

Yes, the cry of the people of Isra'el has come to me, and I have seen how terribly the Egyptians oppress them.

"'A curse on anyone who interferes with justice for the foreigner, orphan or widow.'All the people are to say, 'Amen!'

Sh'mu'el reported everything ADONAI had said to the people asking him for a king.

He said, "Here is the kind of rulings your king will make: he will draft your sons and assign them to take care of his chariots, be his horsemen and be bodyguards running ahead of his chariots.

He will appoint them to serve him as officers in charge of a thousand or of fifty, plowing his fields, gathering his harvest, and making his weapons and the equipment for his chariots.

He will take your daughters and have them be perfume-makers, cooks and bakers.

He will expropriate your fields, vineyards and olive groves - the very best of them! - and hand them over to his servants.

He will take the ten-percent tax of your crops and vineyards and give it to his officers and servants.

He will take your male and female servants, your best young men and your donkeys, and make them work for him.

He will take the ten-percent tax of your flocks, and you will become his servants.

When that happens, you will cry out on account of your king, whom you yourselves chose. But when that happens, ADONAI will not answer you!"

For ADONAI brought Y'hudah low because of Achaz king of Isra'el, since he had caused disturbances in Y'hudah and acted very treacherously against ADONAI.

I thought the matter over and then took issue with the nobles and rulers. I charged them, "You are lending against pledges, everyone to his brother"; and I summoned a great assembly to deal with them.

I said to them, "We, to the limit of our ability, have redeemed our brothers the Judeans who sold themselves to the pagans. Now you are selling your own brothers, and we will have to buy them back!"They stayed silent; they couldn't think of anything to say.

I also said, "What you are doing is not good! You should be living in fear of our God, so that our pagan enemies won't have grounds for deriding us.

Our kings, our leaders, our cohanim and ancestors did not keep your Torah, pay attention to your mitzvot or heed the warnings you gave them.

Even when they ruled their own kingdom, even when you prospered them greatly, in the great, rich land you gave them, they did not serve you; nor did they turn from their wicked deeds.

"'So here we are today, slaves. Yes, in the land you gave our ancestors, so that they could eat what it produces and enjoy its good 1144 here we are in it, slaves!

Its rich yield now goes to the kings you have set over us because of our sins; they have power over our bodies, they can do what they please to our livestock, and we are in great distress!

"Yet God keeps pulling the mighty along -they get up, even when not trusting their own lives.

They are exalted for a little while; and then they are gone, brought low, gathered in like all others, shriveled up like ears of grain.

People cry out from under many oppressions; they cry for help from under the fist of the mighty.

ADONAI, you have heard what the humble want; you encourage them and listen to them,