Contemplative Bible Reading

Ezekial 22:6-12 (New Century Version)

⁶ ” ‘Jerusalem, see how each ruler of Israel in you has been trying to kill people.⁷ The people in you hate their fathers and mothers. They mistreat the foreigners in you and wrong the orphans and widows in you.⁸ You hate my holy things and dishonor my Sabbaths.⁹ The men in you tell lies to cause the death of others. The people in you eat food offered to idols at the mountain places of worship, and they take part in sexual sins.¹⁰ The men in you have sexual relations with their fathers’ wives and with women who are unclean, during their time of monthly bleeding.¹¹ One man in you does a hateful act with his neighbor’s wife, while another has shamefully made his daughter-in-law unclean sexually. And another forces his half sister to have sexual relations with him.¹² The people in you take money to kill others. You take unfair interest and profits and make profits by mistreating your neighbor. And you have forgotten me, says the Lord God.

This passage contains a list of terrible sins the people were committing. Let’s list them:

1. kill people
2. hate parents
3. mistreat foreigners
4. wrong widows and orphans
5. hate holy things
6. dishonor Sabbath
7. tell lies
8. eat food offered to idols
9. take part in sexual sins
10. hateful acts with neighbor’s wife
11. shameful treatment of daughter-in-law
12. sex with half sister
13. kill others for money
14. take unfair interest and profits

These are awful. Wait a minute, who slipped in number 14? Taking interest and profits does not belong in a list with killing, hating, lying, breaking the religion, and mistreating widows and orphans. There must be a mistake here.

Sorry. There is no mistake here. God considers taking unfair interest and profits as bad as killing, hating, and the rest. Hmmm. Perhaps I’ll have to think on this one a while. Perhaps many of us should think on this one a while. As best as I can tell, all of these things carry forward from the time of Ezekial to today (maybe #6 has dropped away).

We may have to watch how we deal with others in business.