Rich and Powerful, the new Sodom and Gomorrah
Inhospitality to the point of harming strangers, the poor and needy was commonplace in Sodom and Gomorrah. God explains that the sin of Sodom was that "She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me." (Ezekiel 16:48-50) The following information is of Jewish origin where the word Sodomites means nothing more than people who are from Sodom. Rabbinic writings affirm that the Sodomites also committed economic crimes, blasphemy and bloodshed. One of these was to give money or even gold ingots to beggars, but the giver would inscribe their name on the money. No one in the community would accept money that had a name on it. The unfortunate stranger would end up starving and after death, the people who gave the money would reclaim it (since it had their name on it). Sodomites believed that "what is mine is mine, and what is yours is yours", which is interprete...