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For they know not to do right, saith the Lord, who store up violence and robbery in their palaces, etc. We derive from this passage three general remarks.

I. THAT THERE IS AN ETERNAL LAW OF "RIGHT" THAT SHOULD GOVERN MAN IN ALL HIS RELATIONS. Right, as a sentiment, is one of the deepest, most ineradicable, and operative sentiments in humanity. All men feel that there is such a thing as right. What the right is, is a subject on which there has been and is a variety of opinion. Right implies a standard, and men differ about the standard. Some say the law of your country is the standard; some say public sentiment is the standard; some say temporal expediency is the standard. All these are fearfully mistaken. Philosophy and the Bible teach that there is but one standard - that is the will of the Creator. That will he reveals in many ways - in nature, in history, in conscience, in Christ. Conformity to that will is right.

1. The law of right should govern man in his relations with God. That law says - Thank the kindest Being most, love the best Being most, reverence the greatest Being most. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God," etc.

2. The law of right should govern man in his relation to his fellow men. "Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them." This law of right is immutable. It admits of no modification. It is universal. It is binding alike on all moral beings in the universe. It is benevolent. It seeks the happiness of all. Earth will be Paradise again when the will of God is done here "as it is in heaven."

II. THAT A PRACTICAL DISREGARD OF THIS LAW LEADS TO FRAUD AND VIOLENCE. "For they know not to do right, saith the Lord, who store up violence and robbery in their palaces." The magnates of Samaria had no respect for the practice of right, hence they "stored up violence and robbery in their palaces." Fraud and violence are the two great primary crimes in all social life. By the former men are deceived, befooled, rifled of their rights, and disappointed of their hopes and expectations. Never was fraud stronger in England than today - fraud in literature, commerce, religion, legislation. By the latter, men are disabled, wounded, crushed, murdered. Can the history of the world furnish more terrible manifeststions of violence than we have had in the wars of Christendom in this age? Why this fraud and violence? Why are these devils let loose to fill the world with lamentation and woe? The answer is in the text, "Men know not to do right" That is, they do not practise the right.

III. THAT FRAUD AND VIOLENCE MUST ULTIMATELY MEET WITH CONDIGN PUNISHMENT. "Therefore thus saith the Lord God; An adversary there shall be even round about the land; and he shall bring down thy strength from thee, and thy palaces shall be spoiled." How was this realized? "Against him came up Shalmaneser King of Assyria; and Hoshea became his servant, and gave him presents .... In the ninth year of Hoshea the King of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes" (2 Kings 3-6; 2 Kings 18:9-11). The cheats and. murderers of mankind will, as sure as there is justice in the world, meet with a terrible doom. Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you" (James 5:1-6). "Punishment is the recoil of crime; and the strength of the back stroke is in proportion to the original blow." - D.T.

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KJV: For they know not to do right, saith the LORD, who store up violence and robbery in their palaces.

WEB: "Indeed they don't know to do right," says Yahweh, "Who hoard plunder and loot in their palaces."