The Bible on Welcoming Immigrants

Published on Updated on Poor People, Solidarity, Stranger

The Bible is clear. We believers are to welcome immigrants. The Bible commands us to love them as ourselves.

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

The Bible is clear. We believers are to welcome immigrants. The Bible commands us to love them as ourselves.

Believers should have empathy for immigrants. After all, Abram himself was an  immigrant. And we believers were foreigners in the land of Egypt.

We believers are to treat people the same, whether they are a citizen or an immigrant.

The LORD God loves immigrants. Doing wrong to an immigrant is forbidden. We are to love them as ourselves. We are to provide for them.

To withhold justice from a foreigner is a grave offense against the LORD God.

To oppress an immigrant is a grave offense against the LORD God.

 

BIBLE VERSES

 

Genesis 12:1. Now the LORD said to Abram, “Leave your country, and your relatives, and your father’s house, and go to the land that I will show you.

Genesis 12:10. There was a famine in the land. Abram went down into Egypt to live as a foreigner there, for the famine was severe in the land.

Genesis 23:4. I am a stranger and a foreigner living with you. Give me a possession of a burying-place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.

Exodus 12:49. One law shall be to him who is born at home, and to the stranger who lives as a foreigner among you.

Exodus 22:21. You shall not wrong an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.

Exodus 23:9. You shall not oppress an alien, for you know the heart of an alien, since you were aliens in the land of Egypt.

Leviticus 19:33. If a stranger lives as a foreigner with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong.

Leviticus 19:34. The stranger who lives as a foreigner with you shall be to you as the native-born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you lived as foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.

Leviticus 23:22. When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and for the foreigner residing among you. I am the LORD your God.

Leviticus 24:22. You shall have for the foreigner as well as the native-born; for I am the LORD your God.

Deuteronomy 10:18. He executes justice for the fatherless and widow and loves the foreigner in giving him food and clothing.

Deuteronomy 10:19. Therefore love the foreigner, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.

Deuteronomy 24:14. You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your brothers or one of the foreigners who are in your land within your gates.

Deuteronomy 24:19. 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 the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.

Deuteronomy 24:20. When you beat your olive tree, you shall not go over the boughs again. It shall be for the foreigner, for the fatherless, and for the widow.

Deuteronomy 24:21. When you harvest your vineyard, you shall not glean it after yourselves. It shall be for the foreigner, for the fatherless, and for the widow.

Deuteronomy 24:22. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt. Therefore I command you to do this thing.

Deuteronomy 26:5. Then you shall declare before the LORD your God: “My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there and became a great nation, powerful and numerous.

Deuteronomy 27:19. “Cursed is anyone who withholds justice from the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow.” Then all the people shall say, “Amen!”

Psalm 146:9. The LORD preserves the foreigners. He upholds the fatherless and widow, but the way of the wicked he turns upside down.

Jeremiah 7:6. if you don’t oppress the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, and don’t shed innocent blood in this place, and don’t walk after other gods to your own hurt;

Ezekiel 22:7. In you have they treated father and mother with contempt. Among you they have oppressed the foreigner. In you they have wronged the fatherless and the widow.

Ezekiel 47:22. You are to allot it as an inheritance for yourselves and for the aliens who have settled among you and who have children. You are to consider them as native-born Israelites; along with you they are to be allotted an inheritance among the tribes of Israel. (NIV translation)

Zechariah 7:10. Don’t oppress the widow, the fatherless, the foreigner, nor the poor; and let none of you devise evil against his brother in your heart.

Malachi 3:5. 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 the LORD of Hosts.

Hebrews 13:2. Don’t forget to show hospitality to strangers, for in doing so, some have entertained angels without knowing it.

3 John 1:5. Beloved, you do a faithful work in whatever you accomplish for those who are brothers and strangers.

 

THE QUR’AN

Qur’an 3:195. Their Lord answered them: “I do not waste the work of any worker from among you, whether male or female, you are all as each other. For those who emigrated and were driven out from their homes and were harmed in My cause, and they fought and were killed, I will forgive for them their sins and admit them to estates with rivers flowing beneath them.” A recompense from God; and God has the best recompense.

 

SEE ALSO

Defrauding Workers of their Just Wages. The Bible forbids us from defrauding poor people and immigrants of their just wages.

 

Unless otherwise noted, all Bible quotations on this page are from the World English Bible and the World Messianic Edition. These translations have no copyright restrictions. They are in the Public Domain.