Friday, 2/19/16
In the Old Testament
there are passages included as though they came from God, while they were
really thoughts of someone who came along later. That was true of what we read
as verses 5 and 6 of Chapter Twenty of Exodus. They say:
“I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God,
inflicting punishment for their fathers’ wickedness on the children of those
who hate me down to the third and fourth generation; but bestowing mercy down
to the thousandth generation on the children of those who love me and keep my
commandments.”
In time the
Israelites paraphrased those words with their own popular saying that said, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the
teeth of their children are set on edge.”
When Ezekiel came
along seven hundred years after Moses he set people straight about the
descendents of good and bad men. As God’s true prophet he said that if a man
turns away from wickedness, doing what is right and just, he shall live. While
if a virtuous man turns from the path of virtue to do evil he shall die.
It is like the old
saying, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” Whatever evil doings
you have behind you, leave them behind you, and live as God’s dear child from
now on.
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