The Bad Samaritan, by Anthony Esolen

You are traveling along the treacherous road from Jerusalem to Jericho, and you happen upon a man lying in the ditch, bleeding to death. You are moved to compassion. In fact, you tell everyone around that that is what you are feeling. So, you get down off your mule. You take a skin of wine and a jar of oil with you and stride past the bleeding man. He’ll be all right, you say. He must be all right because he isn’t making a lot of noise.

Instead, you go right on to one of the thieves, who seems to have gotten a bit scuffed up in the altercation. The victim must have landed at least one blow, you suppose, because the thief has a nosebleed, and he’s complaining about it pretty loudly and making obscene gestures in the general direction of the ditch. Actually, he got hurt when he tripped on his own shoes and fell face-first, but you accept his account of things. …