  THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. FIRST READING.
VERY sad things were going on among the Jews. A great many of them were carried away out of their beautiful hilly land of Canaan, to live among the flat wet marshes round Babylon, and only a few were left with their king Zedekiah at Jerusalem. Jeremiah was speaking God's words to the people of Jerusalem; Ezekiel was speaking God's words to the people who were captives by the river side. They both said the same thing—that the only way to be peaceful, and not to suffer worse and worse, would be to repent and leave off their sins that had displeased God, and pray to Him to spare them, and then to bear patiently the punishment that had begun. But this was just what Zedekiah and his people would not do. They misused Jeremiah for giving them such advice, and they would not own the king of Babylon for their master; and instead of believing God's true prophets, they listened to the false ones, who said, that in a very little while the captives would come back again, and all would be well. Then Ezekiel took a tile, a great flat piece of pottery, and he drew on it the walls and towers of the city of Jerusalem, and made little tents and banks round it, and he lay down by it on his side, and watched it. And he weighed out for himself a very little bad bread to eat. Then, when the people came to ask him why he did this, he said that it was to show them how it would be with their own Jerusalem far away. The Babylonians would come round it, and set up their tents, and make banks of earth to keep the people in, and shoot stones and arrows, and climb the walls. Inside there would be no better food than Ezekiel was eating—no, nor so good—and everyone would be starving, and dying of thirst. Then the enemy would break in, and carry all the chief of them away to Babylon, and keep them prisoners there—till the whole people had come to repent of their sins, and had turned to the Lord with all their hearts. For God has no pleasure in man's being punished. He only punishes that we may turn away from our sin and do right, and be saved at last. If only these Jews would have listened to Ezekiel and Jeremiah, and repented, they would have been spared; but instead of that, they went on growing worse and worse, till they had to have seventy long years of punishment before they could be forgiven. We must take care when we are punished that we are sorry, and not obstinate and hard, or we shall have to be punished more and more. QUESTIONS.
SECOND READING.
SO Jerusalem had been taken, and pulled down, and burnt; and King Zedekiah was dead, and all his sons, and most of the great people had been carried away to Babylon. Only the poorer people were left, that they might plough and sow, and gather the corn and the grapes, and keep the land from getting waste and full of weeds. The Prophet Jeremiah was left among them. There is one book in the Bible called the Book of Lamentation, for it is the sad verses that he made to mourn over the beautiful city and the glorious Temple, all burnt with fire because the people had been so sinful. Still Jeremiah told the people that were left, that if they would be patient and obey the king of Babylon, that after the seventy years of punishment the troubles should be over, and JEREMIAH MOURNING OVER JERUSALEM.—Lam. of Jer. 1:1, 2. But almost as soon as Jeremiah came there, God told him to take some great stones and put them into the clay of the brick kiln near Pharaoh's house, and say that upon those very stones the king of Babylon himself would set up his tent in a few years' time. And so it was. The Babylonians raised a great army, and came marching into Egypt, and there they burnt and destroyed, and killed and made slaves of the people they found there. Then these foolish Jews saw that if they had only stayed quietly at home the king of Babylon would have done them no harm. But now they had run away just where he was coming, and would hurt them most. That came of not trusting God's Word, but trying to run away from Him; for truly nothing is so foolish as to try to hide from God. QUESTIONS.
THIRD READING.
GOD told His prophet Ezekiel to put the Israelites in mind of all that He had done for them, and how ungrateful they had been—always worshipping idols, and turning away from Him, though He had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and led them through the wilderness, and given them the beautiful land of Canaan. But they would not serve Him there, so punishment had come. SOME ISRAELITES WERE CAPTIVES. Some of the Israelites were captives already in the land of the king of Babylon. Ezekiel was one of them; and just four years after he spoke this prophecy, Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, came up against Jerusalem, and took it once more, and made King Zedekiah prisoner as he was trying to flee away. Zedekiah's sons were put to death before his eyes; and after that his eyes were put out, and he was carried in chains to Babylon, and there slain. Beautiful Jerusalem was set on fire, the walls were thrown down, and all the gold and silver in the Temple was carried off to Babylon; and the Jews themselves were made to go there too, and live as prisoners there. This was the way God punished them to make them sorry for their sins; and still He gave them hope that when seventy years were over, they should come back, and build up their city; and after that they would always remember their old fault, and never turn to worship false gods again. So God was merciful even in His anger, and sent their sorrow to make them know Him and serve Him better. QUESTIONS.
THE BREASTPLATE. |
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