Isaiah 13-15; Proverbs 22:17-29

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Today's verses from Proverbs are fitting for the day after Labor Day and the first day of the Republican National Convention:
17 Pay attention and listen to the sayings of the wise;
apply your heart to what I teach,

18 for it is pleasing when you keep them in your heart
and have all of them ready on your lips.

19 So that your trust may be in the LORD,
I teach you today, even you.

20 Have I not written thirty sayings for you,
sayings of counsel and knowledge,

21 teaching you true and reliable words,
so that you can give sound answers
to him who sent you?

22 Do not exploit the poor because they are poor
and do not crush the needy in court,

23 for the LORD will take up their case
and will plunder those who plunder them.

24 Do not make friends with a hot-tempered man,
do not associate with one easily angered,

25 or you may learn his ways
and get yourself ensnared.

26 Do not be a man who strikes hands in pledge
or puts up security for debts;

27 if you lack the means to pay,
your very bed will be snatched from under you.

28 Do not move an ancient boundary stone
set up by your forefathers.

29 Do you see a man skilled in his work?
He will serve before kings;
he will not serve before obscure men. —Proverbs 22:17-29

Isaiah 10-12; Proverbs 22:9-16

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Labor Day.

Today's reading in Isaiah is fitting for the occasion . . .
1 Woe to those who make unjust laws,
to those who issue oppressive decrees,

2 to deprive the poor of their rights
and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people,
making widows their prey
and robbing the fatherless.

3 What will you do on the day of reckoning,
when disaster comes from afar?
To whom will you run for help?
Where will you leave your riches?

4 Nothing will remain but to cringe among the captives
or fall among the slain.
Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away,
his hand is still upraised. —Isaiah 10:1-4

And this from Proverbs . . .
9 A generous man will himself be blessed,
for he shares his food with the poor. . . .
16 He who oppresses the poor to increase his wealth
and he who gives gifts to the rich—both come to poverty. —Proverbs 29:9, 16