Deuteronomy24:17

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Translation

Do not bend

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justice [that is] due to the foreigner or the fatherless, nor take the garment of the widow as a pledge,

Paraphrase

Do not manipulate the rendering of justice that is due to foreigners or orphans, and do not take the widow’s source of warmth to force her to pay her debts more quickly,

Footnotes

1

This verb, which I have rendered as “bend” has “bend down and spread or stretch out” as its primary meaning, although there are other uses as well. From the idea of bending justice they got the idea of perverting justice, or what I refer to in the paraphrase as “manipulating justice.”