8 He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
We dealt with the above glorious call of how to please God, yesterday. Today deals with God’s attitude to wickedness!
9 The voice of the LORD cries to the city—
and it is sound wisdom to fear your name:
“Hear of the rod and of him who appointed it! – The prophet cries out for God and issues a bit of very sound advice!!
10 Can I forget any longer the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked,
and the scant measure that is accursed?
11 Shall I acquit the man with wicked scales
and with a bag of deceitful weights?
12 Your rich men are full of violence;
your inhabitants speak lies,
and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth. – God only lists three of the ‘treasures of wickedness’! I wonder what He could have added for them and that He could add for the ‘treasure’ that we are storing up in the twenty-first century!!
13 Therefore I strike you with a grievous blow,
making you desolate because of your sins.
14 You shall eat, but not be satisfied,
and there shall be hunger within you;
you shall put away, but not preserve,
and what you preserve I will give to the sword.
15 You shall sow, but not reap;
you shall tread olives, but not anoint yourselves with oil;
you shall tread grapes, but not drink wine. – It is so, so easy to think of things that are happening as chance or weather events or natural catastrophes forgetting that God disciplines using ‘the Assyrians’ or bad seasons etc.
16 For you have kept the statutes of Omri,
and all the works of the house of Ahab;
and you have walked in their counsels,
that I may make you a desolation, and your inhabitants a hissing;
so you shall bear the scorn of my people.” – Our basic problem as people is that we choose to follow any way except God’s way!! Omri or Ahab or woke or agnosticism or self- indulgence, any thing apart from ‘to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God.’
Proverbs 21: 2-3 Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the heart. To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice.
Prayer: Help me to learn Your lessons early and to stick with Your Way until I meet You face to Face, I pray.
As I read it! 