God's Social Justice Scheme

Much of my life I've heard, particularly from non-believers, that the God of the Old Testament is angry and jealous and vengeful and cruel, whereas the God of the New Testament is merciful and loving and forgiving.

Of course, most believers, myself included, find that to be an inaccurate claim.

This time 'round of reading the Old Testament (and I'm really beginning to not like that phrase to refer to that section of the Bible) I have been stunned to realize just how much of God's emphasis in it is on social justice. This snippet from Isaiah 58 is a great example:

The bottom line on your 'fast days' is profit.
You drive your employees much too hard.
You fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight.
You fast, but you swing a mean fist.
The kind of fasting you do
won't get your prayers off the ground.

This is the kind of fast day I'm after:
to break the chains of injustice,
get rid of exploitation in the workplace,
free the oppressed,
cancel debts.

What I'm interested in seeing you do is:
sharing your food with the hungry,
inviting the homeless poor into your homes,
putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad,
being available to your own families.