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ISAIAH LVII-OF IDOLATERS

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to serve him, and to love the name of the LORD, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant;

7 Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people.

8 The Lord GOD which gathereth the outcasts of Israel saith, Yet will I gather others to him, beside those that are gathered unto him. 9 All ye beasts of the field, come to devour, yea, all ye beasts in the forest.

10 His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving tc slumber. 11 Yea, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand: they all look to their own way, every one for his gain, from his quarter.

12 Come ye, say they, I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and to-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant.

Chapter 57

1 The blessed death of the righteous. 3 God reproveth the Jews for their whorish idolatry. 13 He giveth evangelical promises to the penitent.

HE righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come.

2 He shall enter into peace: they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness.

3¶ But draw near hither, ye sons of the sorceress, the seed of the adulterer and the whore.

4 Against whom do ye sport yourselves? against whom make ye a wide mouth, and draw out the tongue? are ye not children of transgression, a seed of falsehood,

5 Enflaming yourselves with idols under every green tree, slaying the children in the valleys under the clifts of the rocks?

6 Among the smooth stones of the stream is thy portion; they, they are thy lot: even to them hast thou poured a drink offering, thou hast offered a meat offering. Should I receive comfort in these?

7 Upon a lofty and high mountain hast thou set thy bed: even thither wentest thou up to offer sacrifice.

8 Behind the doors also and the posts hast thou set up thy remembrance: for thou hast discovered thyself to another than me, and art gone up; thou hast enlarged thy bed, and made thee a covenant with them; thou lovedst their bed where thou sawest it.

9 And thou wentest to the king with ointment, and didst increase thy perfumes, and didst send thy messengers far off, and didst debase thyself even unto hell.

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ISAIAH LVII- 'WHEN THOU CRIEST"

10 Thou art wearied in the greatness of thy way; yet saidst thou not, There is no hope: thou hast found the life of thine hand; therefore thou wast not grieved.1

11 And of whom hast thou been afraid or feared, that thou hast lied, and hast not remembered me, nor laid it to thy heart? have not I held my peace even of old, and thou fearest me not?

12 I will declare thy righteousness, and thy works: for they shall not profit thee.

13¶ When thou criest, let thy companies deliver thee; but the wind shall carry them all away; vanity shall take them: but he that putteth his trust in me shall possess the land, and shall inherit my holy mountain;

14 And shall say, Cast ye up, cast ye up, prepare the way, take up the stumbling block out of the way of my people.

15 For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.

16 For I will not contend for ever, neither will I be always wroth: for the spirit should fail before me, and the souls which I have made. 17 For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth, and smote him: I hid me, and was wroth, and he went on frowardly in the way of his heart.

18 I have seen his ways, and will heal him: I will lead him also, and restore comforts unto him and to his mourners.

19 I create the fruit of the lips; Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the LORD; and I will heal him.

20 But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest,

whose waters cast up mire and dirt.

21 There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.

Chapter 58

1 The prophet, being sent to reprove hypocrisy, 3 expresseth a counterfeit fast and a true. 8 He declareth what promises are due unto godliness, 13 and to the keeping of the sabbath.

RY aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.

2 Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God; they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God.

3 Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? where fore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours.

The Revised Version alters this verse to Thou wast wearied with the length of thy way: yet saidest thou not, There is no hope: thou didst find a quickening of thy strength; therefore thou wast not faint."

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The Prophet Jonah

BY GEORGE F. WATTS, R. A., THE NOTED ENGLISH
PRE-RAPHAELITE PAINTER, DIED 1904.

BY PERMISSION OF F. HOLLYER.

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"Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.”—Jonah, 1, 2.

T

HE Prophetic Books of the Bible are not arranged

in chronological order; hence the sequence of the events and their relation to the history of the Israelites is sometimes difficult to follow. The picture story of these books is therefor arranged here in the order of time, the earliest prophet first. Of course there had been prophets through all of Israel's history, Samuel in the days of the Judges, Elijah during Northern Israel's splendor. But none of the prophetic writings of these earlier men have come down to us; we know the seers only from the account of their lives in the historic books. Beginning, however, with the period of the decline and fall of the Hebrew kingdoms, the days of Assyrian and Babylonian supremacy, there have been preserved the actual words of prophecy, the burning flames with which holy fathers spake to the hearts of their countrymen.

Of these later prophets the earliest was Jonah, whose book indeed holds only a doubtful position among the others; for it is chiefly, as are the Historic Books, an account of Jonah written by some other man. Moreover, Jonah was the most unwilling of these great preachers to accept his mission, delivering his divine message only when forced to do so, and giving it then in such excitement and frenzy as the

artist Watts has here conceived.

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