taking care of widows

²⁷This is religion, clean and undefiled before God the Father: to visit orphans and widows in their tribulations, and to keep yourself immaculate, apart from this age.

³Honor those widows who are true widows. ⁴But if any widow has children or grandchildren, let her first learn to manage her own household, and to fulfill, in turn, her own obligation to her parents; for this is acceptable before God.

⁸But if anyone has no concern for his own, and especially for those of his own household, he has denied the faith, and he is worse than an unbeliever.

²²You shall not harm a widow or an orphan. ²³If you hurt them, they will cry out to me, and I will hear their cry.

⁷If one of your brothers, who dwells within the gates of your city, in the land which the Lord your God will give to you, falls into poverty, you shall not harden your heart, nor tighten your hand. ⁸Instead, you shall open your hand to the poor, and you shall lend to him whatever you perceive him to need. ⁹Take care, lest perhaps an impious thought might creep within you, and you might say in your heart: ‘The seventh year of remission approaches.’ And so you might turn your eyes away from your poor brother, unwilling to lend to him what he has asked. If so, then he may cry out against you to the Lord, and it will be a sin for you. ¹⁰Instead, you shall give to him. Neither shall you do anything craftily while assisting him in his needs, so that the Lord your God may bless you, at all times and in all things to which you will put your hand. ¹¹The poor will not be absent from the land of your habitation. For this reason, I instruct you to open your hand to your indigent and poor brother, who lives among you in the land.

⁹Let a widow be chosen who is no less than sixty years of age, who was the wife of one husband,

¹You should not rebuke an old man, but rather plead with him, as if he were your father; with young men, like brothers; ²with old women, like mothers; with young women, in all chastity, like sisters. ³Honor those widows who are true widows. ⁴But if any widow has children or grandchildren, let her first learn to manage her own household, and to fulfill, in turn, her own obligation to her parents; for this is acceptable before God. ⁵But she who is truly a widow and is destitute, let her hope in God, and let her be urgent in supplications and prayers, night and day. ⁶For she who is living in pleasures is dead, while living.

¹⁷You shall not pervert the judgment of the new arrival or the orphan, nor shall you take away the widow’s garment as collateral. ¹⁸Remember that you served in Egypt, and that the Lord your God rescued you from there. Therefore, I am instructing you to act in this way. ¹⁹When you have reaped the grain in your field, and, having forgotten, you leave behind a sheaf, you shall not return to take it away. Instead, you shall permit the new arrival, and the orphan, and the widow to take it away, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the works of your hands. ²⁰If you have gathered the fruit of your olive trees, you shall not return in order to gather whatever may remain on the trees. Instead, you shall leave it behind for the new arrival, the orphan, and the widow. ²¹If you harvest the vintage of your vineyard, you shall not gather the remaining clusters. Instead, they shall fall to the use of the stranger, the orphan, and the widow.

²⁸In the third year, you shall separate another tenth part of all the things which spring forth for you at that time, and you shall store it within your gates. ²⁹And the Levite, who has no other portion or possession with you, and the sojourner as well as the orphan and the widow who are within your gates, shall approach and eat and be satisfied, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the works of your hands which you shall do.”

³Judge for the indigent and the orphan. Do justice to the humble and the poor.

¹⁷Learn to do good. Seek judgment, support the oppressed, judge for the orphan, defend the widow.

¹In those days, as the number of disciples was increasing, there occurred a murmuring of the Greeks against the Hebrews, because their widows were treated with disdain in the daily ministration.

⁵And Boaz said to the young man who was in charge of the reapers, “Whose young woman is this?” ⁶He answered him, “This is the Moabite woman, who came with Naomi, from the land of the Moabites, ⁷and she asked to gather the remnants of the ears of grain, following the steps of the reapers, and from morning until now she has remained in the field, and, indeed, not for one moment has she returned home.” ⁸And Boaz said to Ruth, “Listen to me, daughter. Do not go to gather in any other field, nor depart from this place, but join with my young women, ⁹and follow where they reap. For I have given orders to my young men, so that no one is to harass you. And so, whenever you are thirsty, go to the vessels, and drink from the waters that the young men also drink.” ¹⁰She, falling on her face and paying homage on the ground, said to him: “How did this happen to me, that I should find favor before your eyes, and that you would condescend to accept me, a foreign woman?”

²⁶Therefore, when Jesus had seen his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold your son.”