In this message taken from Matthew 5:43-48, Christ instructs us to be benevolent and loving to our enemies. We learn that many Israelites would have known they must love fellow Israelites, but many of them probably had concluded it was their duty to hate foreigners. We explain how this view of hating foreigners probably came from biblical passages like Deuteronomy 20:17 in which Israel was called to utterly destroy whole people groups like the Canaanites, Amorites, Jebusites, etc. Many Israelites took these texts about judging certain foreigners to be a generic call to hate all foreigners. Jesus explains that His people must not be vessels of wrath engaged in holy war against God’s enemies, but we are instead called by Christ to be vessels of mercy equipped with the gospel upon our lips and the love of Christ in our hearts.