Jeremiah 13:23, Can a leopard change its spots?
Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard its spots? Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil.
//Can’t say I ever paid much attention to this verse before. An Ethiopian (Hebrew: Cushite) is a black-skinned person, probably from the upper Nile region. As many times as I’ve heard the popular saying about a leopard changing its spots, I’ve never heard anyone mention the first half of this verse, about whether a black person can change the color of his or her skin skin.
Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil.
OK, I don’t really think the Bible is being racist, here. Elsewhere in the Bible, the Cushites are treated with respect; particularly, the lovely lady of Solomon’s affection in Song of Solomon. Still, I hope the first part of the cliché never catches on.
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Twice before Lee Harmon has written about Christian topics, once on the gospel of John and once on the book of Revelation. But the question people keep asking him is this: As a liberal Christian, why do you care so much about the Bible? Others wonder whether he is truly a Christian at all.
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What really happened 2,000 years ago? How did a persecuted minority of end-time believers known as Christians, with their dreams of Armageddon and a conquering Messiah named Jesus, evolve into the largest religion in the world? Author Lee Harmon explores the period in which the New Testament was written in his books about John's Gospel and Revelation.
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I’ve read this verse many times in relation to the meaning of the Ethiopian in the Bible. That if it was made clearer in the King James version that the Ethiopian held an esteemed place among the ancient people in the Bible, there would be much less racism today.
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