Judges, Chapter 8,
Verse 19-20 19“They were my
brothers, my mother’s sons,” he said. “As the LORD lives, if you had spared
their lives, I would not kill you.”20Then he said to his
firstborn, Jether, “Go, kill them.” But the boy did not draw his sword, for he
was afraid, for he was still a boy.
Jether was still a boy
when asked by his father to continue the cycle of violence. Sometimes children
are wiser than parents. Children instinctively know that being fair starts with
understanding your own shortcomings and listening to that small voice of
conscience.
The reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) used the phrase when saying:
Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness
begets a greater toughness. We must meet the forces of hate with the power of
love... Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate the white man, but to win
his friendship and understanding.
“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a
descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy,…
