Friend of Strangersعينة

After God rescued Israel from Egypt, they camped in the desert at Mount Sinai. Moses goes up the mountain and receives the commandments that God wants Israel to live by. A foundation of Israel's relationship with God is how they relate to the strangers within Israel and the foreign peoples outside Israel, according to the Law of Moses. If Israel keeps the covenant, God will let Israel conquer the land of Canaan and then bless them abundantly in their new homeland. But if Israel breaks the covenant, God promises to curse Israel by driving them out of the land of Canaan. So when God makes a covenant with Israel, he instructs them to love not only God but also the stranger: “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with 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.” (Le 19:33-34) In sum, God instructs Israel through the Law of Moses to welcome strangers, refugees, and immigrants to their land as guests, to contribute financially to them out of their abundance, to include and integrate them into religious life and society by giving obligations and rights, and to treat them as themselves. If Israel obeyed, God would also bless Israel. But, if Israel breaks the covenant by mistreating its fellow human beings, God warns them that he will then side with the weak and vulnerable and listen to their cries for help: “You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. If you do mistreat them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry.” (Ex 22:21-23)