He is a merchant, the balances of deceit are in his hand: he loveth to oppress.
He is a trader who holds dishonest scales in his hand to enrich himself at his neighbor's cost, and his delight is to wrong others by extortion. The dishonest scales are not limited to a rigged beam or a short weight, but embrace every crooked device in fixing a price or in hiding defects and falsely commending the nature and worth of what is sold. To love oppression is to love getting unjust profit by such trickery.
The cheat first imposes on his buyers and then imposes on himself, until sharp practice ceases to trouble him and becomes his settled way of doing business. God is not imposed upon, for He weighs every act with unerring exactness, so that the man who has blinded himself will be startled when his true record is exposed in judgment. The same character marks a religious institution that withholds testimony against slavery in order to keep its literature in circulation, for by shielding iniquity and choosing policy over conscience and the word of God it becomes a merchant with deceitful balances loving oppression.
He is a trader who holds dishonest scales in his hand to enrich himself at his neighbor's cost, and his delight is to wrong others by extortion. The dishonest scales are not limited to a rigged beam or a short weight, but embrace every crooked device in fixing a price or in hiding defects and falsely commending the nature and worth of what is sold. To love oppression is to love getting unjust profit by such trickery.
The cheat first imposes on his buyers and then imposes on himself, until sharp practice ceases to trouble him and becomes his settled way of doing business. God is not imposed upon, for He weighs every act with unerring exactness, so that the man who has blinded himself will be startled when his true record is exposed in judgment. The same character marks a religious institution that withholds testimony against slavery in order to keep its literature in circulation, for by shielding iniquity and choosing policy over conscience and the word of God it becomes a merchant with deceitful balances loving oppression.