Isaiah 5:20 (NRSV)
Read Isaiah 5:20 on biblegateway.com
Verse 20Ah, you who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!
Devotion
Calling evil good and good evil can take many forms. Perhaps we are indifferent to evil: “it’s not really so bad in the overall scheme of things.” Perhaps we identify evil only with the “big stuff,” ignoring all the “little” evils that accumulate right under our noses. Perhaps we name only the “specific” deeds evil, ignoring the systemic evils built into the infrastructure of our society. Perhaps we mask the evil by associating it with the name of God or piety or moral values. Prepare your own list, and don’t forget to look close to home.
Prayer
Evaluator God, probe deeply into our hearts, as individuals and as a society, and unveil the evil we so often call good. Even more, unmask the way in which we, again and again, call good things evil because they don’t seem to fit into our particular way of thinking and doing and living the faith. Make us more alert as to how entrenched evil lives among us. Amen.