I refuse to accept the Bible as a moral guide, because it sanctions cheating and the use of dishonorable methods in obtaining wealth and power. "And Jacob sod [boiled] pottage; and Esau came from the fields, and he was faint; and Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint.... And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright. And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die; and what profit shall this birthright do me? And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him; and he sold his birthright unto Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentils; and he did eat and rose up and went away" (Gen. xxv, 29-34). This transaction, one of the basest recorded, receives the sanction of the Bible. Jacob, with God's assistance, by using striped rods, cheated Laban out of his cattle: "And it came to pass, whensoever the stronger cattle did conceive, that Jacob laid the rods before the eyes of the cattle in the gutters, that they might conceive among the rods. "When the cattle were feeble, he put them not in; so the feebler were Laban's and the stronger Jacob's. And the man increased exceedingly, and had much cattle" (Gen. xxx, 41-43). "If he [Laban] said thus, The speckled shall be thy wages; then all the cattle bare speckled; and if he said thus, The ringstreaked shall be thy hire; then bare all the cattle ringstreaked. Thus God hath taken away the cattle of your father and given them to me" (Gen. xxxi, 8, 9). Thus, by defrauding his uncle, his famishing brother, and his blind and aged father, this God-beloved patriarch stands forth the prince of cheats--the patron saint of rogues. The Israelites obtain the Egyptians' property by false pretenses. "And I [God] will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians; and it shall come to pass that when ye go, ye shall not go empty; but every woman shall borrow of her neighbor, and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver and jewels of gold, and raiment; and ye shall put them upon your sons and upon your daughters; and ye shall spoil [rob] the Egyptians" (Ex. iii, 21, 22). "And the Lord said unto Moses, ... Speak now in the ears of the people, and let every man borrow of his neighbor, and every woman of her neighbor, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold" (Ex xi, 1, 2). "And the children of Israel did according to the word of Moses; and they borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment; and the Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they lent unto them such things as they required; and they spoiled the Egyptians" (Ex. xii, 35, 36).