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What does the Bible say about helping the widows and orphans?

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The Bible teaches that God calls his people to reflect his own compassionate justice by protecting, providing for, and honoring widows and orphans, who are especially vulnerable. James 1:27 describes care for them as a mark of pure religion flowing from devotion to God. The Lord identifies himself as Father of the fatherless and protector of widows in Psalms 68:5, and he warns against exploiting them in Exodus 22:22-25 and Malachi 3:5. His people are to seek justice, defend the oppressed, and share practical resources rather than closing their hearts, as Isaiah 1:17 and 1 John 3:17 teach. Such mercy does not earn salvation, but is the fitting fruit of faith in the gracious God who upholds the needy.

Top passages, ranked by readers

Rankings: OpenBible.info Topical Bible (CC BY) · Scripture: World English Bible

  • James 1:27 10 votes

    Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

  • Exodus 22:22 6 votes

    “You shall not take advantage of any widow or fatherless child.

  • 1 John 3:17 5 votes

    But whoever has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, then closes his heart of compassion against him, how does God’s love remain in him?

  • Psalms 68:5 4 votes

    A father of the fatherless, and a defender of the widows, is God in his holy habitation.

  • Isaiah 1:17 4 votes

    Learn to do well. Seek justice. Relieve the oppressed. Defend the fatherless. Plead for the widow.”

  • Deuteronomy 24:19 3 votes

    When you reap your harvest in your field, and have forgotten a sheaf in the field, you shall not go again to get it. It shall be for the foreigner, for the fatherless, and for the widow, that Yahweh your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.

  • Malachi 3:5 3 votes

    I will come near to you to judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against the perjurers, and against those who oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and who deprive the foreigner of justice, and don’t fear me,” says Yahweh of Armies.

  • Psalms 146:9 3 votes

    Yahweh preserves the foreigners. He upholds the fatherless and widow, but he turns the way of the wicked upside down.

  • Exodus 22:21-25 3 votes

    “You shall not wrong an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. “You shall not take advantage of any widow or fatherless child. If you take advantage of them at all, and they cry at all to me, I will surely hear their cry; and my wrath will grow hot, and I will kill you with the sword; and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless. “If you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor, you shall not be to him as a creditor. You shall not charge him interest.

  • Psalms 82:3 2 votes

    “Defend the weak, the poor, and the fatherless. Maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.

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