Open your mouth for the mute, in the cause of all who are left desolate.
Parallel translations
- KJV Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction.
- BSB Open your mouth for those with no voice, for the cause of all the dispossessed.
- NKJV Open your mouth for the speechless, In the cause of all who are appointed to die.
- NASB Open your mouth for the people who cannot speak, For the rights of all the unfortunate.
- NLT Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those being crushed.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves and for all the defenseless.
Overview
The mother charges her royal son to use his position and voice to advocate for the voiceless and destitute. Power is given not for self-indulgence but for the protection of the weak. This call echoes God's heart for the vulnerable and is perfectly fulfilled in Christ, who pleads our cause and defends the helpless.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Ps 82:3–4“Defend the weak, the poor, and the fatherless. Maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.
- Prov 24:11–12Rescue those who are being led away to death! Indeed, hold back those who are staggering to the slaughter!
- Jer 38:7–10Now when Ebedmelech the Ethiopian, a eunuch, who was in the king’s house, heard that they had put Jeremiah in the dungeon (the king was then sitting in the gate of Benjamin),
- Jer 26:24But the hand of Ahikam the son of Shaphan was with Jeremiah, that they should not give him into the hand of the people to put him to death.
- Job 29:12–17Because I delivered the poor who cried, and the fatherless also, who had no one to help him,
- Esth 4:13–16Then Mordecai asked them return answer to Esther, “Don’t think to yourself that you will escape in the king’s house any more than all the Jews.
- Jer 26:16–19Then the princes and all the people said to the priests and to the prophets: “This man is not worthy of death; for he has spoken to us in the name of Yahweh our God.”
- John 7:51“Does our law judge a man, unless it first hears from him personally and knows what he does?”
- Ps 79:11Let the sighing of the prisoner come before you. According to the greatness of your power, preserve those who are sentenced to death.
- 1 Sam 19:4–7Jonathan spoke good of David to Saul his father, and said to him, “Don’t let the king sin against his servant, against David; because he has not sinned against you, and because his works have been very good toward you;
- 1 Sam 20:32Jonathan answered Saul his father, and said to him, “Why should he be put to death? What has he done?”
- 1 Sam 22:14–15Then Ahimelech answered the king, and said, “Who among all your servants is so faithful as David, who is the king’s son-in-law, and is taken into your council, and is honorable in your house?
- Prov 24:7Wisdom is too high for a fool: he doesn’t open his mouth in the gate.
- Job 29:9The princes refrained from talking, and laid their hand on their mouth.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Wisdom personified, with God before creation and the agent of all things, anticipates Christ 'in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom' — the wisdom of God made flesh.
How Proverbs 31:8 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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