---
title: Isaiah 1:17 (JPS 1917) — Learn to do well; seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fat… · tree and pragmatics
description: Learn to do well; seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. Who acts: you. Isaiah 1:17 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Isaiah 1:17 · JPS 1917

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Learn to do well; seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.

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**Who acts:** you · **What happens:** learn, do, seek, relieve, judge, plead · **To what, where:** justice, oppressed, fatherless

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This is Isaiah 1:17 · JPS 1917 in the English of the Jewish Publication Society's 1917 translation, from Mova's open Bible corpus. The page gives the sentence's syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies, parsed by Mova and checked by a teacher model — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it. The original of the verse links back to its own tree and to the Targum.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = jps:ISA:17
# text = Learn to do well; seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.
1	Learn	learn	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
2	to	to	PART	TO	_	3	mark	_	_
3	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	1	xcomp	_	_
4	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	3	advmod	_	_
5	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	6	punct	_	_
6	seek	seek	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	1	conj	_	_
7	justice	justice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
9	relieve	relieve	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	oppressed	oppress	NOUN	NN	Number=Plur	9	obj	_	_
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
13	judge	judge	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	fatherless	fatherless	NOUN	NN	Number=Plur	13	obj	_	_
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
17	plead	plead	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
18	for	for	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	widow	widow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: command
- act: request
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: changed act=request

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **learn** | imperative | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **do** | to-infinitive | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  | well *property* | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **seek** | infinitive | you *not said here* | justice |  |  |  |  | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent justice=Theme |
| 4 | **relieve** | infinitive | you *not said here* | the oppressed |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus oppress=Experiencer |
| 5 | **judge** | infinitive | you *not said here* | the fatherless |  |  |  |  | vn estimate-34.2-1-1 «NP V NP.value»: agent=Agent fatherless=Value |
| 6 | **plead** *speech: request* | infinitive | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  | for the widow | tree rules |

<!-- .note -->
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

## The Hebrew of this verse {#hebrew}

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לִמְד֥וּ הֵיטֵ֛ב דִּרְשׁ֥וּ מִשְׁפָּ֖ט אַשְּׁר֣וּ חָמ֑וֹץ שִׁפְט֣וּ יָת֔וֹם רִ֖יבוּ אַלְמָנָֽה׃ס

[Isaiah 1:17: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and Targum Jonathan →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/neviim/ISA.1.17/)

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**Source.** The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text, Jewish Publication Society, 1917, from eBible.org: public domain. Sentence `jps:ISA:17` of Mova's parse database.

**The tree and the speech act** come from Mova's cycle: the small model's draft, read by a large model as teacher, passed by Mova's gates (Elamur Cosmic License). **The frames** are read from the tree by Mova's frames reader (`prag`) when this page is built, the chapter read in order, so a pronoun may be resolved from an earlier sentence of the chapter.

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