Exodus 23:1-9

You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with the wicked to act as a malicious witness. You shall not follow a majority in wrongdoing; when you bear witness in a lawsuit, you shall not side with the majority so as to pervert justice; nor shall you be partial to the poor in a lawsuit.

When you come upon your enemy’s ox or donkey going astray, you shall bring it back.

When you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden and you would hold back from setting it free, you must help to set it free.

You shall not pervert the justice due to your poor in their lawsuits. Keep far from a false charge, and do not kill the innocent and those in the right, for I will not acquit the guilty. You shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the officials, and subverts the cause of those who are in the right.

You shall not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.

God wasn't finished on Mt. Sinai with the Ten Commandments. The law was expanded upon and clarified before those stone tablets came into being. God needed to let God's people know what the expectations were for this community of people.

Those commandments have been passed down and taught in confirmation classes and preserved on courthouse walls.

And here we can see an expansion of "you shall not bear false witness." Honesty is clearly defined here. Bearing false witness gets context.

And that gives some heft behind teaching the commandments today.

But what is most interesting to me in this breadth of a definition of honesty is the last verse:

"You shall not oppress a resident alien."

An honest people, a people who elevate the law enough to put it outside a courtroom, expand that honesty to the aliens who reside in their land.

Imagine that.

There's a lot of quoting of God's law to the Israelites these days for all kinds of purposes. 

But we do well to remember that the God of law is also the God who said "what you do to the least of these, you do to me."

Honestly.

Lord, help with lead with integrity and justice to help those who are often left outside of the protection of the law. Amen.