Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. To those who first Jesus say this, such things were mind boggling. That meant they were expected to love Gentiles, tax collectors and their Roman oppressors. For us in 2022, we don't have the same caliber enemies here in the USA, but we do have plenty of people that we don't like or find hard to love and based on Jesus' teaching on hate in our hearts, we are still found lacking. Christ closes this passage with the admonition to be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect. The only way we can attain such perfection is to allow Jesus to do it on our behalf!
