If You Are Going To Quote The Bible – Quote All Of It

Monday, February 23, 2026

I am rapidly approaching my wit’s end when it comes to sanctimonious liberal Christians quoting Leviticus 19 to me regarding the current administration’s immigration policy.  Specifically verses 33 and 34, “When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong.  The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.” And most people stop with the first sentence of that quote – failing to acknowledge the second about treating them as a native.  But the plot thickens.

This section of Leviticus is God laying down the law to Moses.  Just a few chapters later, chapter 24 to be precise, verses 17-23 God adds:

Now if someone takes any human life, he must be put to death.  But the one who takes the life of an animal shall make restitution, life for life.  If someone injures his neighbor, just as he has done, so shall it be done to him: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; just as he has injured a person, so shall it be inflicted on him.  So the one who kills an animal shall make restitution, but the one who kills a person shall be put to death.  There shall be only one standard for you; it shall be for the stranger as well as the native, for I am the Lord your God.’”  Then Moses spoke to the sons of Israel, and they brought the one who had cursed outside the camp, and stoned him with stones. So the sons of Israel did just as the Lord had commanded Moses.

The bottom line here is that “the stranger,” the immigrant as we call them these days, are subject to the same law as anyone else – the same law.  Secondly it should be remembered the the Jews of this period were an itinerant people with no physical borders to guard.  People joined their merry band of campers as they moved about, and they left it.  There was no kingdom of Israel as of yet, just a group of people bound together by their devotion to a single God and everyone in that band was subject to the laws of the band, even if they were accustomed to a different set of laws before joining the band.  Israel later developed quite an extensive body of law to determine who was Jewish and who wasn’t and what it took to become Jewish from the outside.  So spare me the out-of-context quotations just because you don’t like Trump or because you think I.C.E. plays too rough.

People in this country who violate the law are subject to arrest and detention.  People who entered the country through other than proper legal channels have violated the law and are therefore subject to arrest and detention.  The same law is in fact being applied to “the stranger” as is being applied to “the native.”

Evading law enforcement is a violation of the law, whether that law be about speeding or immigration.  The same law is in fact being applied to “the stranger” as is being applied to “the native.”

When an individual resists arrest, law enforcement can legally respond with force.  People that assist someone in resisting arrest are also in violation of the law and law enforcement can also legally respond to such individuals with force.  The same law is in fact being applied to “the stranger” as is being applied to “the native.”

Spare me the sanctimony.

If you think the law is wrong – work to change the law.  That is how it works in this country.  You lobby, you write letters, you run for office but you do not stand in the way of law enforcement doing its job.

Nor do you quote scripture out of context.