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Well, all this we accept from them while we are protecting them: yet they curse us, as said before. But of this later.

[After lengthy exegetical, historical dissertations there follows a highly interesting paragraph from which it may be seen that Luther was acquainted with the Talmud and Schulchan-Aruch already at his time, which explains his changed attitude over against the Jew question.]

Do not their Talmud and Rabbis write that it is no sin to kill if a Jew kills a heathen, but it is sin if he kills a brother in Israel! It is no sin if he does not keep his oath to a heathen. Therefore, to steal and rob (as they do with their usury) from a heathen, is a divine service. For they hold that they cannot be too hard on us nor sin against us, because they are the noble blood and circumcised saints; we however, cursed Goyim. And they are the masters of the world and we are their servants, yea, their cattle! In short, as the Rabbis have taught them, so also their Evangelists tell us (Matthew 15:6, “And honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the Commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.”) that they have abolished the Fifth Commandment about honouring father and mother; and

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