And do not show favoritism to a poor person in a lawsuit. The prohibition against showing favoritism to the poor in a legal case is the counterweight to the protections given to the poor throughout the legal code. Justice requires equal treatment: not prejudice against the poor and not prejudice in favor of them. Leviticus 19:15 makes this explicit: do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly. The tendency to romanticize poverty as moral virtue is as much a distortion of justice as despising the poor. The covenant community's commitment to justice requires that every person — poor or rich, foreigner or native — is judged by the same standard.

COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS

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