We’re reading today at Mass one of the three long discourses Moses speaks to the people poised to enter and take possession of the land they have been promised.

Here are his words…as they are. They speak for themselves.

Think! The heavens, even the highest heavens,

belong to the LORD, your God,

as well as the earth and everything on it.

Yet in his love for your fathers the LORD was so attached to them as to choose you, their descendants,

in preference to all other peoples, as indeed he has now done.

Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and be no longer stiff-necked.

For the LORD, your God, is the God of gods,

the LORD of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome,

who has no favorites, accepts no bribes;

who executes justice for the orphan and the widow,

and befriends the alien, feeding and clothing him.

So you too must befriend the alien,

for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt.