November 18, 2005
Daily Lesson
Jonathan Zasloff writes:
Early yesterday morning, the House Republicans passed a budget resolution severely cutting Medicaid, food stamps, and child care. Meanwhile, their allies in the Senate passed a resolution extending tax cuts for some of the wealthiest investors.
Class, the Daily Lesson comes from Amos, 8:1-8:
Thus the LORD showed me: Behold, a basket of summer fruit.
And He said, "Amos, what do you see?" So I said, "A basket of summer fruit."
Then the LORD said to me:
"The end has come upon My people Israel;
I will not pass by them anymore.
And the songs of the temple shall be wailing in that day,"
Says the LORD God--
"Many dead bodies are everywhere;
they shall be thrown into silence"
Hear this, you who swallow up the needy,
and make the poor of the land fail,
saying:
"When will the New Moom be past that we may sell grain?
And the Sabbath, that we may trade wheat?
Making the ephah small and the shekel large,
Falsifying the scales by deceit.
That we may buy the poor for silver,
and the needy for a pair of shoes--
Even sell the bad wheat?"
The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
"Surely I will never forget any of their works.
Shall the land not tremble for this,
And everyone mourn who dwells in it?
All of it shall swell like the River,
heave and subside
like the River of Egypt."
We might also read from Isaiah 10: 1-2
Woe to the legislators of infamous laws,
who refuse justice to the unfortunate
and cheat the poor among my people of their rights,
who make widows their prey, and rob the orphan.
Class, who would like to comment? Rev. Dobson? Rev. Robertson?
Hello?
