Such texts show how indifferent the bible is to what we understand by morality. As to _coveting_: The whole of the biblical instructions was nothing more than a continuous encouragement to the Jews to covet everything that was their neighbors, from the jewelry of the Egyptian, to the lands, the cattle, the homes and daughters of the nations of the earth: _And Abram fell on his face: and God talked with him, saying... I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession. * For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever._ ** But it will be impossible to command people to rob and slay their neighbors, and to covet their homes and women, without at the same time, commanding them to _hate_ them. _Ye shall not eat of anything that dieth of itself; thou shalt give it unto the stranger... that he may eat it; or thou mayest sell it unto an alien. *** Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother.... unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury._ **** Jesus improved upon the Old Testament by calling upon his followers to include in their hatred the members of their own family: _If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple._ (v) * Genesis xvii, 3, 8. ** Genesis xiii, 15. *** Deuteronomy xiv, 21. **** Deuteronomy xxiii, 19, 20. v. Luke xiv, 26. Religious _persecution_ is openly sanctioned both in the Old and the New Testaments. Every expression of independence, or disagreement with the priesthood, was blasphemy, and punishable by death. _And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the Lord, shall be put to death._ * The Bible gives a very long list of "blasphemies" for which the death penalty is ordered--from failing to circumcise one's children, to gathering sticks on the Sabbath. And as to those professing a different faith, the commandment was as follows: _These are the statutes and judgments, which ye shall observe to do in the land, which the Lord God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth. Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree: And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place._ ** * Leviticus xxiv, 16. ** Deuteronomy xii, 1-4.