Proverbs 31:8

Open your mouth ¹  on behalf of those unable to speak, ²  for the legal rights of all the dying. ³ 

"Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute.

Open your mouth for the mute, For the rights of all the unfortunate.

Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those who are perishing.

"Speak up for the people who have no voice, for the rights of all the down-and-outers.

Let your mouth be open for those who have no voice, in the cause of those who are ready for death.

Speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights of all the destitute.

Open your mouth for the speechless, In the cause of all who are appointed to die.

Open your mouth ¹  on behalf of those unable to speak, ²  for the legal rights of all the dying. ³ 

¹ sn The instruction to “open your mouth” is a metonymy of cause; it means “speak up for” (so NIV, TEV, NLT) or in this context “serve as an advocate in judgment” (cf. CEV “you must defend”).

² sn The instruction compares people who cannot defend themselves in court with those who are physically unable to speak (this is a figure of speech known as hypocatastasis, an implied comparison). The former can physically speak; but because they are the poor, the uneducated, the oppressed, they are unable to conduct a legal defense. They may as well be speechless.

³ tn Or “of all the defenseless.” The noun חֲלוֹף (khalof) means “passing away; vanishing” (properly an infinitive); in this construction “the sons of the passing away” means people who by nature are transitory, people who are dying – mortals. But in this context it would indicate people who are “defenseless” as opposed to those who are healthy and powerful.