The era is roughly 150 b.c. in the fractured hills of Judea. A thief hauls fifty pounds of stolen wheat along a cracked dirt road. The midday heat burns his shoulders. His back aches from the heavy, exhausting labor of his crime. A fearful dread drives his tired legs. He seeks a hollow consolation by dropping a few stolen copper coins into the hands of a starving widow.
Asher watches this split nature in men. They try to balance wicked acts with holy gestures. A merchant steals copper and then donates to the temple. Temple administrators in the second century rigorously weighed all treasury contributions to separate pure silver from base lead. A man who ruins his neighbor hopes a religious tax will mask his guilt. He starves himself on holy days while stealing another man's livestock. These contradictions break the basic laws of community trust. Men build fragile shelters out of lies.
The stolen copper coin weighs exactly the same in the palm of a beggar as it does in the fist of a thief. Men use loud generosity to wash the dirt from their own guilt. They believe they can buy off the Creator of Heaven with the exact goods they stole from his poor. The divided mind always bankrupts itself trying to pay off both sides of the street.
A thief never buys a clean conscience with stolen money.
The copper coins of the hypocrites dissolved into the Judean soil centuries ago. The surviving text leaves behind a cold record of men who destroyed themselves trying to serve two masters.