A Texas sheriff said police critics should shut up because he believes law enforcement officers are granted their authority by God.

Randy Meeks, the Hunt County sheriff, published a print-only guest editorial in the local Herald-Banner, citing Bible verses to argue that police officers are tasked with enforcing law and order for a godly nation, reported blogger Brett Sanders.

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The blogger posts screen shots from the guest editorial, which was published just days after a grand jury cleared one of Meeks’ deputies in the videotaped beating of a pregnant Air Force veteran during the investigation of a domestic dispute.

“Due to recent events, I can no longer be silent concerning what our country allows,” Meeks wrote. “It is amazing to me that the criminals who break into our homes and steal from us, those who sell drugs to our children, those who abuse innocent and defenseless children, those who rape our wives and daughters, those who commit cold-blooded murders are all innocent until proven guilty.”

“Yet, law enforcement officers are found guilty as soon as it ‘appears’ that the officer has done something wrong,” the sheriff added. “Way before the whole incident can be reviewed and the TRUTH obtained, that officer is found guilty and nobody cares what the facts are. This folks, is a travesty!”

Meeks thanked local defense attorneys — with the exception of one unnamed attorney and her investigator — “who chose not to go against your local officials,” and he thanked most local media for their professionalism and every single law enforcement officer for continuing to do their jobs in the face of criticism.

“Do officers make mistakes? Absolutely! Are there some bad officers? Yes, a few slip through the cracks, but not many,” Meeks wrote.

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“What has our country come to?” he continued. “When will we wake up to the fact that a country established ‘under God’ is now a Godless nation. People evidently don’t want law and order. They want to kill, threaten and to harm the very officers who are in place to protect them.”

He then cited a pair of Bible verses he hoped would silence critics.

“Guess where that authority comes from to law enforcement? It comes from God,” Meeks wrote. “Read Romans 13:1 in the Bible. And while you are at it, you folks in Ferguson, Baltimore, Arlington and here, take a Gander at Romans 13:2.”

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The first verse, according to the New Living Translation, reads: “Everyone must submit to governing authorities. For all authority comes from God, and those in positions of authority have been placed there by God.”

In fact, voters elect a sheriff ever four years for each county in Texas.

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The following verse, according to the same translation, warns: “So anyone who rebels against authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and they will be punished.”

The sheriff closed his editorial by encouraging law enforcement officers to “hang in there” and continue doing their jobs to the best of their ability — in spite of “the ignorance of some people.”