the rich shall trade the poor as if sandals

4 Hear this, you that crush the poor, and make the needy of the land to fail,
5 Saying: When will the month be over, and we shall sell our wares: and the sabbath, and we shall open the corn: that we may lessen the measure, and increase the sicle, and may convey in deceitful balances,
6 That we may possess the needy for money, and the poor for a pair of shoes, and may sell the refuse of the corn?
7 The Lord hath sworn against the pride of Jacob: surely I will never forget all their works.-- DRC

Last Sunday's old testament reading was from the eighth chapter of Amos. I do not remember hearing a homily given for this reading. I can remember people squirming in the past, when the lector read the passage well. It is appropriate for harvest season, the moon was full on the midweek next, but it is not politically correct to discomfort a capitalist people of moneyed desires and who vote republican. Still, there are some beautiful passages of social justice in scripture, and if men would heed there would be less need for prophets, but, today, prophets do not have a hearing in the forum, whereas, profits own the forum.

In continued coincidence as one thing ties into another, Martin Sheen (who has connections with the Catholic Worker And Dorothy Day) was on Prairie Home today and I had to miss a class on Dorothy Day as I was working on an elevator shaft on the night of the harvest moon. We hear too little about, and do too little to enact social justice. What a thought: you that crush the poor, and ... possess ... the poor for a pair of shoes. The shameless, scheming and essentially ruthless rich, who game the system still.

Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time -- what you may have heard in church:

Hear this, you who trample upon the needy
and destroy the poor of the land!
“When will the new moon be over,” you ask,
“that we may sell our grain,
and the sabbath, that we may display the wheat?
We will diminish the ephah,
add to the shekel,
and fix our scales for cheating!
We will buy the lowly for silver,
and the poor for a pair of sandals;
even the refuse of the wheat we will sell!”
The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
Never will I forget a thing they have done! --NAB

Some translations add a different flavor. What is the best word for calciamentis ? Earlier in Amos ii 6:

Thus saith the Lord: For three crimes of Israel, and for four I will not convert him: because he hath sold the just man for silver, and the poor man for a pair of shoes. -- DRC

Forward to Jesus as the just man sold for silver and one should see the gravity of the matter.