Add parallel Print Page Options

Loans and Wages. 10 When you make a loan of any kind to your neighbor, you shall not enter the neighbor’s house to receive the pledge, 11 but shall wait outside until the person to whom you are making the loan brings the pledge outside to you. 12 If the person is poor, you shall not sleep in the pledged garment, 13 but shall definitely return it at sunset, so that your neighbor may sleep in the garment(A) and bless you. That will be your justice before the Lord, your God.

Read full chapter

You keep your relatives’ goods in pledge unjustly,[a]
    leave them stripped naked of their clothing.(A)

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 22:6–9 This criticism of Job by Eliphaz is untrue (cf. 31:19), but he is driven to it by his belief that God always acts justly, even when he causes someone to suffer; suffering is due to wrongdoing (cf. v. 29).

16 Take the garment of the one who became surety for a stranger;(A)
    if for foreigners, exact the pledge![a]

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 20:16 The text is not clear. See 27:13. Caution in becoming surety is always advised (cf. 6:1–3), and it is especially advisable with strangers.

13 Take the garment of the one who became surety for a stranger;(A)
    if for a foreign woman, exact the pledge![a]

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 27:13 See note on 20:16.

Upon garments taken in pledge
    they recline beside any altar.[a](A)
Wine at treasury expense
    they drink in their temples.

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 2:8 Upon garments…any altar: creditors kept the garments taken as pledges from the poor instead of returning them to their owners before nightfall as the law commanded (Ex 22:25; cf. Dt 24:12). Wine…in their temples: lavish feasts for the rich, serving the finest wines in great abundance (see 6:4–7) and funded by the treasuries of local temples (e.g., at Dan and Bethel). The Hebrew in this verse is difficult. Another possible translation would be: “And the wine of those who have been fined / they drink in the house of their god.”