Thematic Bible: Often cruel in exacting debts

After giving it much thought, I made a protest to the chiefs and the rulers, and said to them: Everyone of you is collecting interest from his brothers. I organized a big meeting of protest. I said to them: We have given whatever we were able to give, to make our brothers the Jews free. They were servants and prisoners of the nations. Would you now give up your brothers for a price? Are they to become our property? They said nothing. They answered not a word! I said: What you are doing is not good. Is it not necessary for you to walk out of respect for our God, because of the shame the nations put on us?

They drive away the donkey of the orphan. They take the widow's ox for a pledge. They force the needy to yield the road. The poor of the earth all hide themselves. Like wild donkeys in the desert they go out to their toil. They search in the wasteland food for their young. read more.
They reap in a field not their own and they glean in the vineyard of the wicked. They lie all night naked, without clothing, and have no covering in the cold. They are wet with the rain of the mountains. They cling to the rock in search of shelter. There are those who snatch the orphan child from the breast. They take as a pledge the infant of the poor.

Then that servant met another servant who was in debt to him for one hundred denarii. He took him by the throat, saying, 'Pay your debt now.' That servant fell down before him, saying, 'Give me time and I will make payment to you.' He would not give him time. He put him into prison till he paid the debt.