"Go Woke, Go Broke"

Florida rejects Holocaust education textbooks in clampdown on ‘woke’ instruction - https://t.co/uBTdCypYOv

— Frida Ghitis (@FridaGhitis) May 12, 2023

It's the caption that really gets me.

For crime after crime of Israel

I shall grant them no reprieve,

because they sell honest folk for silver

and the poor for a pair of sandals.

They grind the heads of the helpless into the dust

and push the humble out of their way.

-Amos 2:6b-7 (REB)

I spurn with loathing your pilgrim-feasts

I take no pleasure in your sacred ceremonies.

When you bring me your whole-offerings and your grain-offerings

I shall not accept them,

nor pay heed to your shared-offerings of stall-fed beasts.

Spare me the sound of your songs;

I shall not listen to the strumming of your lutes.

Instead let justice flow on like a river

and righteousness like a never-failing torrent.

-Amos 5:21-24 (REB)

This is what the Lord God showed me; it was a basket of summer fruit. "What is it that you are looking at, Amos?" he said.  I answered, "A basket of ripe summer fruit." Then the Lord said to me, "The time is ripe for my people Israel. Never again shall I pardon them.  On that day, says the Lord God, the palace songs will give way to lamentation: 'so many corpses, flung out everywhere! Silence!'"

Listen to this, you that grind the poor and suppress the humble in the land while you say "When will the new mon be over so that we may sell grain?  When will the sabbath be past so that we may expose our wheat for sale, giving short measure in the bushel and taking overweight in the silver, tilting the scales fraudulently, and selling the refuse of the wheat; that we may buy the weak for silver and the poor for a pair of sandals?" The Lord has sworn by the arrogance of Jacob: I shall never forget any of those activities of theirs.

--Amost 8:1-7 (REB)

Your countless sacrifices, what are they to me? says the Lord

I am sated with whole-offerings of rams

and the fate of well-fed cattle

I have no desire for the blood of bulls,

of sheep, and of he-goats,

when you come into my presence.

No more shall you tread my courts,

To bring me offerings is futile;

the reek of sacrifice is abhorrent to me.

Wash and be clear;

put away your evil deeds

from my sight;

cease to do evil, learn to do good.

Pursue justice, guide the oppressed,

uphold the rights of the fatherless,

and plead the widow's cause.

Isaiah 1:11-13-a, 16-17 (REB)

Woe to him who says,

"I shall build myself a spacious palace

with airy roof chambers and

windows set in it.

It will be paneled with cedar

and painted with vermilion."

Though your cedar is so splendid,

does that prove you a king?

Think of your father: he ate and drank,

dealt justly and fairly; all went well with him.

He upheld the cause of the lowly and poor;

then all was well.

Did not this show he knew me? says the Lord.

But your eyes and your heart are set on naught but gain, set only on the innocent blood you can shed,

on the cruel acts of tyranny you perpetrate.

Jeremiah 22: 14-17 (REB)

I could go on.  The clear cause of the Exile, according to the prophets, was the failure of the people to follow the law of Moses and uphold the cause of the lowly and the poor, who were children of Abraham too, after all.

I suppose as long as we don't call it "social justice" in Florida....