“If a soul sin, and commit a trespass against the Lord, and lie unto his neighbour in that which was delivered him to keep, or in fellowship, or in a thing taken away by violence, or hath deceived his neighbour;”
If anyone sins and is unfaithful to the Lord by deceiving a neighbor about something entrusted to them or left in their care or about something stolen, or if they cheat their neighbor. The guilt offering extension into interpersonal ethics: not only the misappropriation of sacred things (Leviticus 5:15) but the deception and cheating of a neighbor also requires the guilt offering with restitution. The connection between the offense against the neighbor and the guilt offering to God communicates the covenant's integrated ethic: wronging a neighbor is wronging God, because the neighbor is made in God's image and stands in covenant relationship with the same God. 1 John 4:20 says whoever does not love their brother or sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.
COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS
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