What is God's heart for the marginalized?
Here is a sampling of verses about the marginalized, arranged in five couplets which can be used as a call-and-response creed. New Living Translation (NLT) © 2015 Tyndale.
Aligning with God’s Truth
He ensures that orphans and widows receive justice.
He shows love to the foreigners living among you
and gives them food and clothing. (Deuteronomy 10.18)
Give it to the Levites, who will receive no allotment of land among you, as well as to the foreigners living among you, the orphans, and the widows in your towns, so they can eat and be satisfied. Then the LORD your God will bless you in all your work. (Deuteronomy 14.29)
When you are harvesting your crops and forget to bring in a bundle of grain from your field, don’t go back to get it. Leave it for the foreigners, orphans, and widows. Then the LORD your God will bless you in all you do. (Deuteronomy 24.19)
When you beat the olives from your olive trees, don’t go over the boughs twice. Leave the remaining olives for the foreigners, orphans, and widows. (Deuteronomy 24.20)
Then you must declare in the presence of the LORD your God, ‘I have taken the sacred gift from my house and have given it to the Levites, foreigners, orphans, and widows, just as you commanded me. I have not violated or forgotten any of your commands. (Deuteronomy 26.13)
‘Cursed is anyone who denies justice to foreigners, orphans, or widows.’ And all the people will reply, ‘Amen.’ (Deuteronomy 27.19)
Your leaders are rebels, the companions of thieves. All of them love bribes and demand payoffs, but they refuse to defend the cause of orphans or fight for the rights of widows. (Isaiah 1.23)
They deprive the poor of justice and deny the rights of the needy among my people. They prey on widows and take advantage of orphans. (Isaiah 10.2)
Foreigners are forced to pay for protection. Orphans and widows are wronged and oppressed among you. (Ezekiel 22.7)
“At that time I will put you on trial . . . I will speak against those who cheat employees of their wages, who oppress widows and orphans, or who deprive the foreigners living among you of justice, for these people do not fear me,” says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies. (Malachi 3.5)
