Usury

Passages on this topic

From Nave’s Topical Bible (1896), a historical reference index. The groupings are Nave’s; the verses are shown in the text used across this site.

(Interest, not necessarily unreasonable exaction, but all income from loans)

Forbidden

• Exodus 22:25 If you lend money to one of My people among you who is poor, you must not act as a creditor to him; you are not to charge him interest.
• Leviticus 25:35–37 Now if your countryman becomes destitute and cannot support himself among you, then you are to help him as you would a foreigner or stranger, so that he can continue to live among you. Do not take any interest or profit from him, but fear your God, that your countryman may live among you. You must…
• Deuteronomy 23:19 Do not charge your brother interest on money, food, or any other type of loan.
• Psalm 15:5 who lends his money without interest and refuses a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things will never be shaken.
• Proverbs 28:8 He who increases his wealth by interest and usury lays it up for one who is kind to the poor.
• Jeremiah 15:10 Woe to me, my mother, that you have borne me, a man of strife and conflict in all the land. I have neither lent nor borrowed, yet everyone curses me.
• Ezekiel 18:8 He does not engage in usury or take excess interest, but he withholds his hand from iniquity and executes true justice between men.
• Ezekiel 18:13 He engages in usury and takes excess interest. Will this son live? He will not! Since he has committed all these abominations, he will surely die; his blood will be on his own head.
• Ezekiel 18:17 He withholds his hand from harming the poor and takes no interest or usury. He keeps My ordinances and follows My statutes. Such a man will not die for his father’s iniquity. He will surely live.
• Ezekiel 22:12 In you they take bribes to shed blood. You engage in usury, take excess interest, and extort your neighbors. But Me you have forgotten, declares the Lord GOD.

Exaction of, rebuked

• Nehemiah 5:1–13 About that time there was a great outcry from the people and their wives against their fellow Jews. Some were saying, “We and our sons and daughters are numerous. We must get grain in order to eat and stay alive.” Others were saying, “We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards, and our homes to ge…

Authorized, of strangers (foreigners)

• Deuteronomy 23:20 You may charge a foreigner interest, but not your brother, so that the LORD your God may bless you in everything to which you put your hand in the land that you are entering to possess.

Exacted by Jews

• Ezekiel 22:12 In you they take bribes to shed blood. You engage in usury, take excess interest, and extort your neighbors. But Me you have forgotten, declares the Lord GOD.

Just men innocent of the vice of requiring

• Ezekiel 18:8 He does not engage in usury or take excess interest, but he withholds his hand from iniquity and executes true justice between men.

See Interest

See Money