1st Reading – Exodus 22:20-26

Thus says the LORD:
“You shall not molest or oppress an alien,
for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt.
You shall not wrong any widow or orphan.
If ever you wrong them and they cry out to me,
I will surely hear their cry.
My wrath will flare up, and I will kill you with the sword;
then your own wives will be widows, and your children orphans.

“If you lend money to one of your poor neighbors among my people,
you shall not act like an extortioner toward him
by demanding interest from him.
If you take your neighbor’s cloak as a pledge,
you shall return it to him before sunset;
for this cloak of his is the only covering he has for his body.
What else has he to sleep in?
If he cries out to me, I will hear him; for I am compassionate.”

Our first reading comes from a section of Exodus called the Book of the Covenant, a collection of laws that immediately follows the giving of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai. It functions almost like a founding charter for early Israel, translating the broad principles of the commandments into practical laws governing the community’s civil, moral, and religious life.

In today’s passage, these broad principles become concrete obligations toward those particularly vulnerable to exploitation, revealing God’s concern for the foreigner, the widow and orphan, and the poor.

(Note: This passage appears as Exodus 22:21-27 in most translations, but the New American Bible, Jerusalem Bible, and New Jerusalem Bible have it as Exodus 22:20-26.)