⁹ Let your mouth be open, judging rightly, and give right decisions in the cause of the poor and those in need.

⁴ Make songs to God, make songs of praise to his name; make a way for him who comes through the waste lands; his name is Jah; be glad before him.

⁵ A father to those who have no father, a judge of the widows, is God in his holy place.

⁶ Those who are without friends, God puts in families; he makes free those who are in chains; but those who are turned away from him are given a dry land.

⁹ This is what the Lord of armies has said: Let your judging be upright and done in good faith, let every man have mercy and pity for his brother:

¹⁰ Do not be hard on the widow, or the child without a father, on the man from a strange country, or on the poor; let there be no evil thought in your heart against your brother.

¹¹ But they would not give attention, turning their backs and stopping their ears from hearing;

⁹ The Lord takes care of those who are in a strange land; he gives help to the widow and to the child who has no father; but he sends destruction on the way of sinners.

¹⁷ Take pleasure in well-doing; let your ways be upright, keep down the cruel, give a right decision for the child who has no father, see to the cause of the widow.

²⁷ The religion which is holy and free from evil in the eyes of our God and Father is this: to take care of children who have no fathers and of widows who are in trouble, and to keep oneself untouched by the world.

³ Give honour to widows who are truly widows.

¹² For I was a saviour to the poor when he was crying for help, to the child with no father, and to him who had no supporter.

¹³ The blessing of him who was near to destruction came on me, and I put a song of joy into the widow's heart.

¹⁴ I put on righteousness as my clothing, and was full of it; right decisions were to me a robe and a head-dress.