The twin sins of hatred and dishonesty constitute high percentage of evil befalling the world today. While hatred is responsible for huge death records, dishonesty account for collateral damage to individuals, organisations and states.
Considering the destruction of lives and properties that hated has caused in one of the countries in Africa, the parliament of that country in 2018, proposed a hate speech bill with death penalty for its offenders. This was done to reduce the menace of hatred in that country. Hatred is dangerous!
In our text, God reveals murder as a product of hatred and prescribes death as penalty.
Although God instructed the children of Israel to separate some cities for refuge into which slayers were permitted to flee, willful murderers were precluded from that privilege. Also, removal of another person’s landmark in order to make fraudulent gain was forbidden.
Such an act was a product of dishonesty. Bearing false witness was also forbidden.
To this extent, God required that every accusation be thoroughly investigated before an accused person could be condemned.
Where an accusation was found to be baseless and malicious, however, God demanded that the false accuser be punished. In fact, He demanded that the punishment that should have been meted to the accused would be passed on to the false witness.
Murder, from God’s perspective, is not restricted to physical killings: “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him” (1 John 3:15).
We should endeavour to have genuine love for others. We must not allow the pains of offence to drag on in us as that could lead to hatred. We are instructed to love our enemies, bless those that curse us and pray for them that despitefully use and persecute us (Matthew 5:44).
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:
Beware! Hatred is a forerunner to murder.
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