What Did the Early Christians Think of Abortion?

What did the early Christian community think of abortion? Might it influence our own views on abortion?

Outside of the New Testament, one of the oldest preserved Christian writings we have is the Didache, also known as the Teachings of the Lord Through the 12 Apostles to the Gentiles. It’s commonly dated to the late first century, written around the same time as the book of Revelation.

I grabbed my copy of the Didache, remembering it has a passage on abortion. I snapped the following:

The early Christian community living in the same century as Jesus and his disciples believed abortion to be murder and specifically commanded against it.

The Didache isn’t alone.

Nearly a dozen other writings from the early Christian communities call out abortion as a moral evil, a snuffing out of a soul for which we will be held accountable to God: (click to expand)

Letter of Barnabas, 74 AD

“The way of light, then, is as follows. If anyone desires to travel to the appointed place, he must be zealous in his works. The knowledge, therefore, which is given to us for the purpose of walking in this way, is the following. . . . Thou shalt not slay the child by procuring abortion; nor, again, shalt thou destroy it after it is born.”

The Apocalypse of Peter, 137 AD

“And near that place I saw another strait place . . . and there sat women. . . . And over against them many children who were born to them out of due time sat crying. And there came forth from them rays of fire and smote the women in the eyes. And these were the accursed who conceived and caused abortion”

Athenagoras, A Plea for the Christians, 177 AD

“What man of sound mind, therefore, will affirm, while such is our character, that we are murderers? . . . [W]hen we say that those women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit murder, and will have to give an account to God for the abortion, on what principle should we commit murder? For it does not belong to the same person to regard the very fetus in the womb as a created being, and therefore an object of God’s care, and when it has passed into life, to kill it; and not to expose an infant, because those who expose them are chargeable with child-murder, and on the other hand, when it has been reared to destroy it.”

Tertullian, Apology, 197 AD

“In our case, a murder being once for all forbidden, we may not destroy even the fetus in the womb, while as yet the human being derives blood from the other parts of the body for its sustenance. To hinder a birth is merely a speedier man-killing; nor does it matter whether you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to birth. That _is_ a man which is _going to be_ one; you have the fruit already in its seed.”

Tertullian, The Soul, 210 AD

“Among surgeons’ tools there is a certain instrument, which is formed with a nicely-adjusted flexible frame for opening the uterus first of all and keeping it open; it is further furnished with an annular blade, by means of which the limbs [of the child] within the womb are dissected with anxious but unfaltering care; its last appendage being a blunted or covered hook, wherewith the entire fetus is extracted by a violent delivery.

There is also [another instrument in the shape of] a copper needle or spike, by which the actual death is managed in this furtive robbery of life: They give it, from its infanticide function, the name of _embruosphaktes_, [meaning] “the slayer of the infant,” which of course was alive...

[The doctors who performed abortions] all knew well enough that a living being had been conceived, and [they] pitied this most luckless infant state, which had first to be put to death, to escape being tortured alive.

Now we allow that life begins with conception because we contend that the soul also begins from conception; life taking its commencement at the same moment and place that the soul does...”

The law of Moses, indeed, punishes with due penalties the man who shall cause abortion."

Minucius Felix, Octavius, 226 AD

“There are some women who, by drinking medical preparations, extinguish the source of the future man in their very bowels and thus commit a parricide before they bring forth. And these things assuredly come down from the teaching of your [false] gods. . . . To us [Christians] it is not lawful either to see or hear of homicide”

Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, 228 AD

“Women who were reputed to be believers began to take drugs to render themselves sterile, and to bind themselves tightly so as to expel what was being conceived, since they would not, on account of relatives and excess wealth, want to have a child by a slave or by any insignificant person. See, then, into what great impiety that lawless one has proceeded, by teaching adultery and murder at the same time!”

Council of Ancyra, Canon 21, 314 AD

“Concerning women who commit fornication, and destroy that which they have conceived, or who are employed in making drugs for abortion, a former decree excluded them until the hour of death, and to this some have assented. Nevertheless, being desirous to use somewhat greater lenity, we have ordained that they fulfill ten years [of penance], according to the prescribed degrees.”

Basil the Great, First Canonical Letter, canon 2, 374 AD

“Let her that procures abortion undergo ten years’ penance, whether the embryo were perfectly formed, or not”

“He that kills another with a sword, or hurls an axe at his own wife and kills her, is guilty of willful murder; not he who throws a stone at a dog, and unintentionally kills a man, or who corrects one with a rod, or scourge, in order to reform him, or who kills a man in his own defense, when he only designed to hurt him. But the man, or woman, is a murderer that gives a philtrum, if the man that takes it dies upon it; so are they who take medicines to procure abortion; and so are they who kill on the highway, and rapparees.”

John Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans, 391 AD

“Wherefore I beseech you, flee fornication. . . . Why sow where the ground makes it its care to destroy the fruit?—where there are many efforts at abortion?—where there is murder before the birth? For even the harlot you do not let continue a mere harlot, but make her a murderess also. You see how drunkenness leads to prostitution, prostitution to adultery, adultery to murder; or rather to a something even worse than murder. For I have no name to give it, since it does not take off the thing born, but prevents its being born. Why then do thou abuse the gift of God, and fight with his laws, and follow after what is a curse as if a blessing, and make the chamber of procreation a chamber for murder, and arm the woman that was given for childbearing unto slaughter? For with a view to drawing more money by being agreeable and an object of longing to her lovers, even this she is not backward to do, so heaping upon thy head a great pile of fire. For even if the daring deed be hers, yet the causing of it is thine.”

Jerome, Letters, 396 AD

“I cannot bring myself to speak of the many virgins who daily fall and are lost to the bosom of the Church, their mother. . . . Some go so far as to take potions, that they may insure barrenness, and thus murder human beings almost before their conception. Some, when they find themselves with child through their sin, use drugs to procure abortion, and when, as often happens, they die with their offspring, they enter the lower world laden with the guilt not only of adultery against Christ but also of suicide and child murder”

Apostolic Constitutions, 400 AD

“Thou shall not slay thy child by causing abortion, nor kill that which is begotten. . . . [I]f it be slain, [it] shall be avenged, as being unjustly destroyed.”

It should be no surprise the early Christians rejected abortion as a great evil: early Christianity was once part of Judaism, and Judaism has long considered abortion to be forbidden in all but extreme circumstances. (See Is a Jew Permitted to Have an Abortion? for details.)

And why is Judaism against abortion? Because the key Torah principle of pikuach nefesh פקוח נפש, preservation of life. The whole Bible is concerned with preservation of life, such that nearly all other commandments may be broken if necessary to preserve life.

In alignment with this, the Torah states in Exodus 21 that if a man accidentally kills an unborn child, he is liable for damages. How much more so if done deliberately?

Thus, observant Judaism forbids abortion in all but extreme cases, such as when the life of the mother is in danger.

We Messianic believers affirm both the Torah and the New Testament - is it enough that the early Christians opposed abortion?

Perhaps not, but the early Christians opposed abortion because of the overriding principle of pikuach nefesh פקוח נפש found in Hebrew Bible and early Christian writings. In the New Testament, the Messiah said the Sabbath laws can be broken to save the life of an animal – how much more so the life of a human being in the womb?

It’s for this reason the early Christian communities opposed abortion: because a faithful reading of the Biblical texts informed their practice.

And what of Pro-Choice Christians and Jews?

I conclude that pro-choice Christians and Jews are not being faithful to the teachings of the Hebrew Bible or New Testament on this issue. And they're not in alignment with the original faith communities; neither the early Christians, nor the ancient faithful Israelites permitted abortion.

I suspect many pro-choice religious folks recognize this. To support their view, they don't appeal to textual faithfulness nor the practice of the original faith communities. Rather, they appeal to a modern reinterpretation of faith, one what concurs with a modern culture that celebrates abortion in the name of sexual freedom. 

In my estimation, such folks are following the crowd to evil, and calling that evil good. Their reinterpretation of faith in the light (darkness?) of modern culture has led them, ultimately, away from faithfulness to God and God's instruction.

Abortion and the Motte-and-Bailey Fallacy

The US Supreme Court may strike down its federal abortion law, instead allowing each state to decide its own abortion laws. Supreme Court Justice Alito writes,

“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled...It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”

With this news comes leftist arguments in favor of abortion, citing cases where a woman's life is in danger, or cases of rape or incest.

But these are red herrings and a form of the motte-and-bailey fallacy:

Motte (stated position, more defensible):
Pregnancy can put a woman's life in danger; abortion can save lives.

Bailey (true position, less defensible): 
Abortion for any reason, at any time. 

A pragmatic approach would be to limit abortion to extreme cases, such as when the life of the mother is in danger. Indeed, faithful Jews, Christians have allowances for these extreme cases. 

But abortion proponents won't accept the pragmatic approach because their true position is abortion for any reason at any time, which of course is a form of murder.

My longstanding conviction is that the abortion issue is like the slavery issue: a clear moral issue with human life on the line. And like slavery, society has been on the wrong side of this issue for a very long time. 

As it is with slavery, one day society will look back with shame and guilt on our tolerance (celebration?) of abortion-for-any-reason-at-any-time.

Abortion: Examining the Torah’s Commandment Regarding the Unborn

Abortion is a hot topic again in the public sphere, spurred by the US President’s appointment of a new Supreme Court Justice, Judge Kavanaugh, who appears to be pro-life.

• Vice President Pence wants Roe v. Wade to be overturned
• Kavanaugh has made no commitment to Roe v. Wade
• Brett Kavanaugh has left little doubt he rejects a constitutional right to abortion

This has spilled over into pop culture as well.

Comedian Michelle Wolf used her Netflix show last week to dress up in a patriotic costume and shout, “God bless abortions, and God bless America.”

Seeing this last week, conservative firebrand Ben Shapiro noted the left’s evolving view of abortion: from unfortunate necessity to cause célèbre.

Back in 2005, I wrote that the Democratic "safe, legal and rare" formulation regarding abortion was logically and morally untenable…[but] They're now "shouting" their abortions, proclaiming them from the rooftops, suggesting that there is a moral good achieved by abortion.

This led to a spat between Jewish public figures about whether Judaism itself is really pro-life.

Shapiro, an Orthodox Jew himself, tweeted,

Virtually every major Jewish halakhist of the modern era has barred abortion except when the life of the mother is threatened. Don't try quoting the Talmud at me. You just don't know enough. https://t.co/fxcITgIBSm

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) July 10, 2018

This sparked off a public dispute between Shapiro and Jewish author Quinn Cummings.

From there, it exploded further. Rabbi Josh Yuter chimed in, saying the Torah is neither pro-choice nor pro-life. He claimed that trying to shoehorn contemporary terminology – like pro-life or pro-choice – into an ancient document distorts it.

Haaretz, a leftist Israeli publication, published an opinion piece from Rabbi Avraham Bronstein, Why Does Ben Shapiro Sound Like a Christian Evangelical on Abortion? In it, Bronstein argues Judaism’s view on abortion is decided on a case-by-case basis, and is not decidedly pro-life:

Abortion has been a trickier issue to navigate for the Orthodox Jewish community, which tends to identify with socially conservative and pro-Israel Republican values but lines up in religious thought and practice somewhere between the ‘pro-choice’ and ‘pro-life’ camps.

Shapiro fired back with Yes, Judaism is Pro-Life, in which he shows abortion is generally forbidden, and only permitted in certain extreme circumstances:

The Orthodox community lines up heavily in the Republican camp, and certainly not in the pro-choice camp, for a series of simple reasons. First…the baseline halacha – with exceptions, of course – is that abortion is forbidden unless the mother’s life is in danger. The clear consensus of the rishonim (medieval authorities) is that abortion is a Biblical prohibition, the only question being about which scriptural prohibition is implicated.

This is the position of the greatest rabbis of the 20^th century, from Rabbi Moshe Feinstein (who considered abortion murder) to Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach (who agreed) to Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (who also agreed, stating in 1975, “to me it is something vulgar, this clamor of the liberals that abortion be permitted") to Rabbi Ovadiya Yosef (who said that abortion is Biblically prohibited past three months and at least rabbinically prohibited before then).

Nearly all these commentators are pointing out what Judaism-the-religion practices. Judaism’s base text, the Torah, does speak to the life of the unborn in a single passage.

Thousands of years later, Judaism’s sages made contemporary rulings based on that Torah passage and cultural norms. For Orthodox Jews, their view is informed by thousands of years of developed halacha built atop the Torah.

But for Messianic Jews and Hebrew Roots Christians, our view is informed primarily by Torah and the Gospels. Jewish halacha is a point of reference, but not a binding authority.

With that reality in mind, what does the Torah say about abortion? And given that foundation, how should serious disciples of Yeshua view abortion?

I spend the rest of this post answering those two questions in earnest.

Does abortion fall under “Thou Shalt Not Murder”?

The Torah is a legal document, a kind of constitutional blue print for ancient civilization. I happen to believe it is still useful to guide modern civilization. As Jewish luminary Dennis Prager puts it, the 10 Commandments are still the best moral code humanity has seen.

The 20th century saw many attempts at creating moral codes and civilizations apart from Judeo-Christian values – notably Stalin’s Russia and Mao’s China, both atheists – and they failed in spectacular ways.

Given the premise that the Torah is a document that helps shape good morality on a civilizational scale, humans should look at it as a primary source of moral instruction.

Many fundamentalist Christians, including folks in my area of religious influence, take a hardline stance: abortion is murder. The Torah clearly prohibits murder, as we’re all familiar with the 10 commandments, one of which is:

You shall not commit murder.

-Exodus 20

The reasoning goes like this:

1. God says murder is immoral.
2. Murder is the deliberate taking of human life.
3. Abortion is the deliberate taking of unborn human life.
4. Therefore, abortion is murder.

The only wrinkle in all this is #3, unborn human life. Does the Torah say unborn children are full humans?

This isn’t a question I had really considered deeply, always assuming the answer is yes. The question itself is a slippery slope; it’s not difficult to imagine a few centuries ago people asking, “Does the Bible consider blacks to be fully human?” (In fact, in researching this post, I found an old Christian commentary on Exodus likening blacks to lower class non-Jewish slaves in ancient Israel.) I don’t like the question, “Is human group X less than human because Y”, as it tends to justify atrocities.

Maybe a better question is, does the Torah give us any reason to believe unborn children are not fully human?

The answer is a matter of dispute.

Here is the Torah commandment in question:

If men fight, and hit a pregnant woman so that her child is born early, yet no harm follows, the one who hit her is to be strictly fined, according to what the woman’s husband demands of him. He must pay as the judges determine. But if any harm follows, then you are to penalize life for life, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, blow for blow.

-Exodus 21:22

This commandment tells us that if an unborn child is born early due to inadvertent injury to the mother, the violent actor pays a court-ordered fine to the woman.

This has led some, e.g. Reform Judaism, to say ‘born early’ means miscarriage. Indeed, some English translations use the term ‘miscarriage’ here.

Pro-choice Christians and Jews argue, “Well, if the injury resulted in a miscarriage, and only a fine was imposed, that means the Torah values unborn children less than full humans.”

The crux issue here is what “born early” means.

Does it mean miscarriage and death of the fetus?

Or does it mean premature but live birth?”

If the former, the Torah might value the fetus as less-than-human. Then the pro-choice crowd has an argument.

If the latter, the Torah values the fetus as human; life for life.

The Hebrew text reads,

וְכִי-יִנָּצוּ אֲנָשִׁים, וְנָגְפוּ אִשָּׁה הָרָה וְיָצְאוּ יְלָדֶיהָ, וְלֹא יִהְיֶה, אָסוֹן--עָנוֹשׁ יֵעָנֵשׁ, כַּאֲשֶׁר יָשִׁית עָלָיו בַּעַל הָאִשָּׁה, וְנָתַן, בִּפְלִלִים

Notice ְיָצְאוּ יְלָדֶיהָ - yatzu yeladeha - literally, “the child comes out.” Does that imply miscarriage? If so, it would mean the Torah values an unborn human being less than children or adults.

The answer is uncertain, but quite positive for pro-life folks. The Hebrew word יצאו or its Hebrew root word is used 1,061 times in the Tenakh, and only once is it used to describe a dead child. (And in the one time it describes death, it is describing a still birth, not a miscarriage.)

If the Torah isn’t actually describing a miscarriage, but a premature live birth, then it’s bad news for pro-choice folks. It means the Torah values unborn children at the same level as children and adults.

There are two additional problems for the pro-choice religious folks here:

1. This verse is describing an accidental injury, not one deliberately inflicted on the woman or her child.
2. Even if the verse reads as the pro-choice folks wish it, it doesn’t permit abortion-for-any-reason.

Abortion isn’t accidental

Notice how this verse begins: “If men fight, and hit a pregnant woman…”

This suggests that the woman was not deliberately hit; she was collateral damage. For example, if a wife was trying to break up a fight between her husband and another man, and was inadvertently injured. This accidental nature of the injury isn’t disputed.

This is important distinction because the Torah prescribes different punishments for deliberate murder and inadvertent killing. (Our modern law codes likewise follow; we call the former murder, the latter manslaughter.) In the Torah, and in modern law codes, inadvertent killings often carry a lesser punishment than deliberate murder.

Abortion, on the other hand, is entirely deliberate. A woman chooses to kill her unborn infant.

If this verse read as charitably to the pro-choice crowd as possible, the best it could read is,

“If you accidentally induce a miscarriage and the fetus dies, you must pay a fine. But if the mother’s life is lost, it’s the death penalty for you.”

-Pro-choice interpretation of Exodus 21:22

Even this best-case interpretation for pro-choicers is hardly a ringing endorsement for modern abortion!

But that charitable reading is unlikely to reflect the original intent. A likely more faithful reading is,

“If you accidentally hit a woman and induce early birth, you must pay a fine. But if any life is lost, it’s the death penalty for you.”

-A more accurate interpretation of Exodus 21:22

Christian theologian and preacher John Piper makes the same argument: this verse almost certainly refers to premature live birth, not a miscarriage. And if that’s true, there’s no reason to believe the Torah values unborn children less than children or adults.

This isn’t abortion for any reason

Suppose again the pro-choice folks are correct, and this verse is actually describing a miscarriage. The verse would then mean: “if men fight and accidentally injure a pregnant woman, causing the death of the fetus, he must pay a fine.”

Even if we were to grant such a reading, this still is a far stretch from abortion-for-any-reason. And this is indeed what the political left is pushing for: abortions for any reason. Or, as Michelle Wolf stated on her Netflix show last week,

If you need an abortion, get one! [throws confetti]

If you want an abortion, get one! [throws confetti]

If you’re not pregnant but want to order a future abortion, get one! [throws confetti]

No faithful Jew or Christian could make the argument that the Torah permits what Michelle Wolf and other leftists are pushing for, and have already legalized: abortion for any reason.

Summary of the Torah and Gospels on life

The Torah gives us one commandment about the injury and potential death of unborn children. It simply cannot be used to justify abortion-on-demand and abortion-for-any-reason.

Even in the best-case interpretation for pro-choice religious people, it could only be read as an accidental miscarriage carrying a lesser weight than murder. If we read it in that way – even though it’s probably an incorrect interpretation of the original meaning – even then the Torah prescribes a monetary penalty for those who accidentally harm the fetus.

One wonders, what would the Torah prescribe for those who deliberately harm or kill and infant? I’m not sure religious leftists have an answer for this; I haven’t seen one.

Finally, now that we’ve dealt with the actual text of the Torah, note that both Jews and Christians have historically made exceptions for abortion on a case-by-case basis. If the mother’s is in mortal danger due to a birth problem, abortion has sometimes been permitted; the Jewish sages value the life of the mother over the life of the unborn.

Should disciples of Yeshua do that?

Yeshua lived out the Torah in a way that favored life over ritual. For example, he concurred it was permissible to save the life of a donkey even when shabbat laws forbade working on the 7th day. The gospels also record Yeshua ruling that it’s better for a man to take care of his parents in old age than to dedicate all his resources to the Temple.

If Messiah favored life over ritual, how much more would he favor life over convenience? A mother who doesn’t want a child due to inconvenience - what Scriptural grounds could we give her to validate her choosing abortion?

From either the Tenakh or the New Testament, I can’t think of even one.

Killing human beings: Why abortion is immoral but capital punishment is just

Summary: Society tolerates 2 forms of killing human beings: abortion and capital punishment. In leftist thought, putting serial murderers to death is considered barbaric, while killing unborn children is considered progressive. These two stances of the political left are inconsistent and immoral. Inconsistent because they take opposing sides on the question of whether life is sacred. Immoral because God is a God of both mercy and justice.

What I Learned from Executing Two Men appeared in the New York Times today. The author, an Oregon State Penitentiary superintendant and executioner of two death row inmates, argues the death penalty is too expensive, doesn’t effectively reduce capital crimes, and has a great emotional cost to executioners.

But these are all side issues. His main argument appears in the opening of the article:

After much contemplation, I became convinced that, on a moral level, life was either hallowed or it wasn’t. And I wanted it to be.

The man's essential argument boils down to the sacredness of life. All life is holy, and since destroying something holy is immoral, capital punishment must be immoral.

But if this is true, we must be consistent and concede abortion's inherent immorality since it also snuffs out human life. (Elevated: abortion takes a human life that has committed no crime.)

It’s no surprise to see an article opposing capital punishment appear in the leftist New York Times. But it highlights a chink in the leftist armor: opposition to capital punishment based on sacredness of life undermines the left’s position on abortion.

Inconsistency of the political left

The left argues we ought to oppose capital punishment because human life is hallowed. The left sees capital punishment as savage and uncivilized:

In the same breath, the left argues that people should be able to take the life of an unborn child for any reason at any time during pregnancy.

Some leftists go even further, claiming a woman’s choice should include taking the life of a child immediately after birth: what humanity has long deemed murder and infanticide. This May 2016 article from the leftist publication Salon claims society “needs to have a conversation about infanticide” and all but argues for a woman’s right to practice it.

It’s logically inconsistent to oppose capital punishment while remaining in favor of abortion for any reason. The argument goes like this: Oppose capital punishment because sacredness of life, but favor abortion because a person is too inconvenienced by the consequence of their own sexual choices.

Such a policy makes the implied statement that human choice to end innocent life is more important than life itself. Such a policy makes human life out to be discardable; not sacred at all.

This immoral position produces a society which favors sparing the lives of mass murderers while taking the lives of children who have committed no crime.

Opposing abortion and favoring capital punishment is moral and consistent

We religious people in the Judeo-Christian tradition – a tradition tried and tested in the furnace of 3500 years of civilization – understand that all life is indeed holy.

In theological terms, humans are created in God’s image and are the pinnacle of all living things. Thus, we’re holy; distinct from and above all other life forms.

If that was all there was to the story, we’d agree with the New York Times, the political left, and our executioner author: human life is holy. Capital punishment, then, is wrong. God is a God of mercy. Many religionists who are driven by leftism go no deeper than this.

However, faithful Jews and Christians have also come to understand that mercy without justice is also an immoral position. All mercy and no justice produces pushovers, and evil people are emboldened without fear of retribution. God is not a pushover; God is a God of both mercy and justice.

This means that while human life is indeed holy, a once-holy life can be rendered unholy and corrupt through grievous crimes. A serial murderer may have once been a holy life, but by his actions he is rendered corrupt and wicked.

And the answer to that extreme level of corruption of something holy must be the highest order of justice we can enforce: ending that life humanely. A fate far better than that of his victims.

This is how Jews and Christians oppose abortion but generally uphold capital punishment: all life is holy, but grievous crimes blot out sacredness.

The divine standard: mercy and justice

The left bases many of its positions on feeling and emotion. Opposition to capital punishment and favoring gay rights are two such issues: it feels good to pardon a person’s life, even if that person is a mass murderer. And it feels good to grant newly-minted rights, even if there is no divine origin for the so-called right. The left is filled with permissive mercy.

But God is a God of mercy and justice.

Mercy: Like a mother who never corrects her children, a God who practices only mercy and never justice is unjust. The children grow unruly and wicked, and the wicked are emboldened without fear of retribution.

If You, Lord, kept a record of our sins
My Lord, who could stand?
But with You there is forgiveness,
So that You may be revered.

-Psalm 130

Justice: Likewise, a God who executes justice without mercy is a harsh law-giver without compassion. Like a father who is always disciplining but never forgiving, a God who practices only justice and never mercy is also unjust; there is no room for repentance, restitution, and forgiveness.

Our practice as disciples of the Messiah must be reflective of God’s character: showing both mercy and justice.

God has told you, humanity, what is good,
And what the Lord desires from you:
To love mercy,
To practice justice,
And to walk humbly with your God

-Micah 6