The current explosion in the number of refugees has acerbated a related issue, namely the selling of human beings, both men and women, boys and girls into slavery for sexual exploitation or other nefarious affairs. This has become much more serious than we have perhaps realized and it has spurred many people and charitable organizations into action, It is such a serious matter that it is fast becoming almost a characteristic of our age, a characteristic that is ingrained in large areas of our society because the refugee crisis increases exponentially the vulnerability of the victims.

Reading Amos, we become painfully aware that injustice in its many different forms has always blighted our human societies. Those merchants who would "diminish the ephah and add to the shekel" were lacking in what we now know as "business ethics." They even bought and sold human beings.

Every time we come across news items about the sale of human beings, let us remember that Jesus himself was sold for thirty pieces of silver. When any human being is sold as a slave, Jesus is sold once again.