Am 8, 4-6 You who trample upon the needy

(Am 8, 4-6) You who trample upon the needy

[4] Hear this, you who trample upon the needy and destroy the poor of the land! [5] "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! [6] We will buy the lowly man for silver, and the poor man for a pair of sandals; even the refuse of the wheat we will sell!"

(CCC 409) This dramatic situation of "the whole world [which] is in the power of the evil one" (1 Jn 5:19; cf. 1 Pt 5:8) makes man's life a battle: The whole of man's history has been the story of dour combat with the powers of evil, stretching, so our Lord tells us, from the very dawn of history until the last day. Finding himself in the midst of the battlefield man has to struggle to do what is right, and it is at great cost to himself, and aided by God's grace, that he succeeds in achieving his own inner integrity (GS 37 § 2).