I'm starting to think they're reading from a different Bible up in Etowah County.

Maybe Roy Moore thumped the thing so hard the words got mixed up.

"Let us prey."

Something's lost in translation.

Like in Matthew when that pious dude has a come-to-Jesus moment and is shocked to learn he's not booked for salvation.

"Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison?" he asked, incredulous that his tickets to Heaven weren't waiting at Will Call.

Most of you know the response he got. Contempt. Condemnation, and one of the strongest messages of the gospels.

"Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me," Jesus said.

I wonder where all those words fell out. Those pages.

Because it seems like Etowah County - and much of the Bible Belt, for that matter - only got part of the point.

"Do it to one of the least of these."

Do it to 'em. Without remorse.

I don't know this Etowah abridgment. I didn't know it when Moore rained judgment with a redwood sticking out of his eye, when he preached loathing in the name of Jesus or when he forever tainted the passage "let the little children come to me."

But public officials - those who thump that Bible even if they don't follow it - put politics above right and wrong, pinning the blame on the poor and sick and strange and imprisoned.

Etowah County Sheriff Todd Entrekin answered questions Friday, attempting to explain away pocketing a quarter million dollars a year from the inmate food fund in his jail. He was not convincing.

Etowah County Sheriff Todd Entrekin.

He stood by his nutrition plan, boasting that "several meals are above the (recommended) calorie count."

"Eat what you are served and you will get a balanced meal," he said.

Eat what you're served and the sheriff gets a vacation home.

Politicians could fix it. The Etowah County Commission could assume authority for the food program, but they're too busy passing the buck or praying they won't get tainted by Entrekin's buffoonery.

Rep. Mack Butler, a Republican, filed a constitutional amendment in the Alabama Legislature that sought to end it, to have leftover food money deposited in a bank and spent only for official use.

But that turned into a food fight. Rep. Craig Ford, a longtime Democrat who will run against Butler as an Independent in a senate race, failed to sign onto the local bill, thereby killing it. He pointed to Republican Sen. Phil Williams, whose questions about the bill also would have killed it.

Everybody points at everybody and nothing changes. Not just in Etowah County, but across the state, where sheriffs in almost 50 counties are incentivized to profit from food funds, and most won't say how much they feed inmates or how much they take for themselves.

Give Butler credit for trying. He said he's fully on board to propose and pass a statewide bill to change all that, to end the antiquated practice once and for all.

"I'm committing to you, we're going to fix it," he said.

If he can cut through the piety.

The Alabama Legislature won't make it happen this year, but the House did approve a constitutional amendment to let the state and public schools display the Ten Commandments - assuring that state money will be spent on lawsuits and not education, or help for the poor, or for the hungry, or thirsty, or strangers, or the naked or sick or in prison.

I don't know if they're missing words. But they sure do miss the point.

John Archibald's column appears in The Birmingham News, the Huntsville Times, the Mobile Register and AL.com. Write him at jarchibald@al.com.