Exodus — Chapter 22

He that sacrificeth to gods, shall be put to death, save only to the Lord. The death penalty for idolatry reflects, says Lapide, the gravity of the crime: apostasy from the one true God is treason against the supreme sovereign, and by corrupting the community's relationship to God it threatens the foundations of all social order. He notes that this law applies to the theocratic constitution of Israel and does not require civil death penalties for heresy in every political constitution; the Church uses spiritual penalties (excommunication) as her primary instrument.

Thou shalt not molest a stranger, nor afflict him: for yourselves also were strangers in the land of Egypt. The protection of the stranger in the Law of Moses is grounded in experiential memory: Israel knows what it is to be a stranger and a slave. Lapide notes that this is a foundation of natural law applied to civic life: the alien resident has human dignity and cannot be oppressed. He cites Chrysostom (Hom. in Mt. 50): \"God considers nothing great in us except mercy; it is our entrance to the kingdom.\"

If thou lend money to any of my poor people that dwelleth with thee, thou shalt not be hard upon them as an extortioner, nor oppress them with usuries. The prohibition of usury among Israelites is for Lapide a fundamental principle of economic justice. He cites Aquinas (II-II, q. 78): usury is unjust because it charges for the use of money as if time itself were for sale, and time belongs to God alone. He distinguishes the Mosaic prohibition (absolute among coreligionists) from the natural law prohibition of exploitative lending, and notes that the Church's traditional condemnation of usury was not abrogated but refined by later economic analysis.