But you have dishonored the poor man. Don’t the rich oppress you, and personally drag you before the courts?

World English Bible · Public Domain

Parallel Translations

  • WEB World English Bible

    But you have dishonored the poor man. Don’t the rich oppress you, and personally drag you before the courts?

  • TYNDALE Tyndale New Testament (1534)

    But ye have despised the poore. Are not the rych they which opresse you: and they which drawe you before iudges?

  • GNV Geneva Bible (1599)

    But ye haue despised the poore. Doe not the riche oppresse you by tyrannie, and doe not they drawe you before the iudgement seates?

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Cross-references (36)

Passages linked to James 2:6 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.

  • Proverbs 17:5 Whoever mocks the poor reproaches his Maker. He who is glad at calamity shall not be unpunished.
  • Proverbs 14:31 He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for his Maker, but he who is kind to the needy honors him.
  • 1 Corinthians 11:22 What, don’t you have houses to eat and to drink in? Or do you despise God’s assembly and put them to shame who don’t have enough? What shall I tell you? Shall I praise you? In this I don’t praise you.
  • Psalms 14:6 You frustrate the plan of the poor, because Yahweh is his refuge.
  • Psalms 10:14 But you do see trouble and grief. You consider it to take it into your hand. You help the victim and the fatherless.
  • Psalms 12:5 “Because of the oppression of the weak and because of the groaning of the needy, I will now arise,” says Yahweh; “I will set him in safety from those who malign him.”
  • Proverbs 22:16 Whoever oppresses the poor for his own increase and whoever gives to the rich, both come to poverty.
  • Ecclesiastes 5:8 If you see the oppression of the poor, and the violent taking away of justice and righteousness in a district, don’t marvel at the matter, for one official is eyed by a higher one, and there are officials over them.
  • Ecclesiastes 9:15-16 Now a poor wise man was found in it, and he by his wisdom delivered the city; yet no man remembered that same poor man. Then I said, “Wisdom is better than strength.” Nevertheless the poor man’s wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard.
  • Isaiah 3:14-15 Yahweh will enter into judgment with the elders of his people and their leaders: “It is you who have eaten up the vineyard. The plunder of the poor is in your houses. What do you mean that you crush my people, and grind the face of the poor?” says the Lord, Yahweh of Armies.
  • Amos 2:6-7 Yahweh says: “For three transgressions of Israel, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they have sold the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals; They trample on the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and deny justice to the oppressed; and a man and his father use the same maiden, to profane my holy name;
  • Amos 5:11 Therefore, because you trample on the poor, and take taxes from him of wheat: You have built houses of cut stone, but you will not dwell in them. You have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine.
  • Amos 8:4-6 Hear this, you who desire to swallow up the needy, and cause the poor of the land to fail, Saying, ‘When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may market wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel large, and dealing falsely with balances of deceit; that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals, and sell the sweepings with the wheat?’ ”
  • Micah 6:11-12 Shall I be pure with dishonest scales, and with a bag of deceitful weights? Her rich men are full of violence, her inhabitants speak lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their speech.
  • Zechariah 7:10 Don’t oppress the widow, nor the fatherless, the foreigner, nor the poor; and let none of you devise evil against his brother in your heart.’
  • Acts 8:3 But Saul ravaged the assembly, entering into every house and dragged both men and women off to prison.
  • Acts 13:50 But the Jews stirred up the devout and prominent women and the chief men of the city, and stirred up a persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and threw them out of their borders.
  • Acts 16:19-20 But when her masters saw that the hope of their gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas, and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers. When they had brought them to the magistrates, they said, “These men, being Jews, are agitating our city
  • Acts 17:6 When they didn’t find them, they dragged Jason and certain brothers before the rulers of the city, crying, “These who have turned the world upside down have come here also,
  • James 2:3 and you pay special attention to him who wears the fine clothing and say, “Sit here in a good place;” and you tell the poor man, “Stand there,” or “Sit by my footstool”
  • James 5:4 Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you have kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of those who reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Armies.
  • 1 Kings 21:11-13 The men of his city, even the elders and the nobles who lived in his city, did as Jezebel had instructed them in the letters which she had written and sent to them. They proclaimed a fast, and set Naboth on high among the people. The two men, the wicked fellows, came in and sat before him. The wicked fellows testified against him, even against Naboth, in the presence of the people, saying, “Naboth cursed God and the king!” Then they carried him out of the city and stoned him to death with stones.
  • Job 20:19 For he has oppressed and forsaken the poor. He has violently taken away a house, and he will not build it up.
  • Psalms 10:2 In arrogance, the wicked hunt down the weak. They are caught in the schemes that they devise.
  • Psalms 10:8 He lies in wait near the villages. From ambushes, he murders the innocent. His eyes are secretly set against the helpless.
  • Psalms 10:10 The helpless are crushed. They collapse. They fall under his strength.
  • Isaiah 53:3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering and acquainted with disease. He was despised as one from whom men hide their face; and we didn’t respect him.
  • Amos 4:1 Listen to this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who tell their husbands, “Bring us drinks!”
  • Habakkuk 3:14 You pierced the heads of his warriors with their own spears. They came as a whirlwind to scatter me, gloating as if to devour the wretched in secret.
  • Acts 4:1-3 As they spoke to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came to them, being upset because they taught the people and proclaimed in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. They laid hands on them, and put them in custody until the next day, for it was now evening.
  • Acts 4:26-28 The kings of the earth take a stand, and the rulers take council together, against the Lord, and against his Christ.’ “For truly, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together against your holy servant, Jesus, whom you anointed, to do whatever your hand and your council foreordained to happen.
  • Acts 5:17-18 But the high priest rose up, and all those who were with him (which is the sect of the Sadducees), and they were filled with jealousy and laid hands on the apostles, then put them in public custody.
  • Acts 5:26-27 Then the captain went with the officers, and brought them without violence, for they were afraid that the people might stone them. When they had brought them, they set them before the council. The high priest questioned them,
  • Acts 18:12 But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews with one accord rose up against Paul and brought him before the judgment seat,
  • James 5:6 You have condemned and you have murdered the righteous one. He doesn’t resist you.
  • John 8:49 Jesus answered, “I don’t have a demon, but I honor my Father and you dishonor me.

Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)

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Explain this verse (15 sources)

Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.

John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 6 Do not the rich. He seems to instigate…

6 Do not the rich. He seems to instigate them to vengeance by bringing forward the unjust rule of the rich, in order that they who were unjustly treated, might render like for like: and yet we are everywhere bid to do good to those who injure us. But the object of James was another; for he only wished to shew that they were without reason or judgment who through ambition honored their executioners, and in the meantime injured their own friends, at least those from whom they never suffered any wrong. For hence appeared more fully their vanity, that they were induced by no acts of kindness: they only admired the rich, because they were rich; nay, they servilely flattered those whom they found, to their own loss, to be unjust and cruel.

There are, indeed, some of the rich who are just, and meek, and hate all unrighteousness; but few of such men are to be found. James, then, mentions what for the most part usually happens, and what daily experience proves true. For as men commonly exercise their power in doing what is wrong, it hence happens, that the more power any one has, the worse he is, and the more unjust towards his neighbors. The more careful then ought the rich to be, lest they should contract any of the contagion which everywhere prevails among those of their own rank.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Secondly, he proveth them to be mad men: for…
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 6 But ye have despised the poor. Do not…
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain But ye have despised the poor; God’s poor, viz.…
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain Our apostle here charges them downright with that sin…
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain But ye have despised the poor,.... Or dishonoured, and…
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Do not the rich often oppress you - By…
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 6. Do not rich men oppress you] The…
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain But ye have despised the poor - Koppe reads…
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain The world's judgment of the poor contrasted with God's.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 6. Ye—Unlike God.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 6. But ye have despised the poor] Better, ye…
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (6) But ye have despised the poor.—Better, ye dishonoured…
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain You have dishonored by your treatment the poor man,…
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 6. But ye have despised the poor. Those whom…

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