Contemplative Bible Reading

Leviticus 19:11 (New International Version)

” ‘Do not steal.
” ‘Do not lie.
” ‘Do not deceive one another.

The first two parts of the above verse are well known. In good old English these were:

Thou shalt not steal

Thou shalt not lie

The third part of the above verse is not so well known,

Thou shalt not deceive

Ooops, that seems to cover much more behavior than “don’t lie.” It prohibits all the “Well, I wasn’t lying, you see, he didn’t really understand what I was saying, and that wasn’t my fault” or “hey, he fell for that old gag, his fault.”

The word “deceive” has some interesting synonyms:

dupe, fool, gull, hoodwink, trick, defraud, outwit, entrap, ensnare, betray

Ooops again. These things are wrong. Even “outwit” is wrong. I thought that was a good characteristic – maybe not.

God is pretty smart about us and our nature. He should know, he created us. Sprinkled here and there in the old and new covenants we can find God telling us,

“I know you are clever. I created you that way. I know there are loopholes in the instructions I have given you. You are smart enough to find most of them, but spending your time to find them and go through them is wrong. I didn’t create you to spend your time and energy doing that. I created you to love one another and love me. Let’s concentrate on that.”

God, help me to concentrate where you wish me to concentrate.