I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading. I had been using One Year Bible Online, but it was time for a change.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Deuteronomy 14-17.

    As I read this I noticed something interesting. At one point Moses told the people that when they come into the land, there should be no poor people among them. A few sentences later he tells them that nevertheless there will be some poor people among them. In between, he tells them to be generous to the poor among them. One of the things they were to do was to cancel the debt they were owed every seven years. In the same way, slaves were to be released every seven years as well. While this was to be the law of the land, it was also supposed to be something people did of their own accord. These rules were intended to not need enforcement. Like so many other good rules, if they needed enforcement, they were a failure. We should follow the spirit of these rules out of a love of God and our fellow man. I believe there is a basic principle here that we should follow. Let us not force people to pay for bad decisions for the rest of their lives.