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As among men there occurs, now and again, a great assize, when flagitious deeds are examined and flagrant offenders judged, so God has his seasons when high-handed crime is arrested, and the offenders feel the reality of Divine justice. Penalties are not awarded in the dark. Good men see clearly the equity of the proceeding and the extreme patience of the Judge. God places his doings in the public light.

I. THE INDICTMENT. It is a long indictment, and embraces all classes of people.

1. Gross abuse of power. The princes - i.e. heads of tribes - used their power for the destruction of life, not to preserve it. The scepter was turned into a dagger. Even neglect to protect innocent life becomes murder.

2. Idolatry. "The city maketh idols against herself." In Israel idolatry was treason. It was the rejection and humbling of their proper King.

3. Murder. "The city sheddeth blood." He who begins to despise God soon learns to under-value human life. Their children were made to pass through the fire. Violence against property and life abounded.

4. Filial disobedience. "In thee have they set light by father and mother." The slaughter of innocent children soon produced its natural fruit. Children grew up without natural affection. If the central sun be destroyed, the planets will soon rush headlong to mutual destruction.

5. Tyranny. "They have dealt by oppression with the stranger: they have vexed the fatherless and the widow." All regard for humane virtues, for common morality, had vanished. It is the custom throughout the East to show hospitality to strangers. This is considered a virtue of the first order; yet even this ordinary virtue was trampled underfoot.

6. Profanity. "Thou hast despised mine holy things, and hast profaned my sabbaths." In Israel this was a most flagrant sin. God had given them tokens of his presence and favor which he had not given unto others; therefore to profane these sacred tokens was to disgrace God in the eyes of the surrounding heathen. It was as if a soldier on the battle-field trailed his country's flag in the mire. It was as if a married woman should fling her wedding ring into the fire.

7. Murderous intrigues. "Men carry tales to shed blood." Untruthfulness is a common sin among the Orientals. Lying intrigues, to encompass a rival's death, are plentiful as laws. This sin the Hebrews had copied from their neighbors.

8. Unchastity and adultery. "They commit lewdness." The sanctity of the marriage-tie disappeared. Virtuous affection was strangled by animal lust. Incest and other abominations followed. The people gradually sank to the level of the beasts. All the special dignity and nobleness of manhood died out. Degradation of humanity spread.

9. Judicial bribery. "They have taken gifts to shed blood." Not an upright judge remained. Wickedness, like an epidemic, spread and infected every office and every rank. The fountain of justice became a fountain of corruption and death.

10. Avarice. There were gains that were dishonest. Extortion was on every side. Avarice, like a cancer, had eaten out all the healthy flesh of honor and sincerity. Gold became to them a god.

11. Forgetfulness of God. This was the root and the crown of their sins. The very memory which God created refused to entertain him; as if a house which a man himself had built should shut its doors against him. When God is driven out, all his retinue - purity, strength, unity, peace, honor - go with him. This is a long and dismal catalogue of crimes.

II. THE ASSIZE-DAY. "Thou hast caused thy days to draw near."

1. This assize is certain. "I the Lord have spoken it, and I will do it." As surely as night succeeds to day, the reckoning-day of God's justice comes. It has never yet failed. Neither the man nor the nation that has defied God has on any occasion escaped.

2. The proceeding will be strictly equitable. The people had made alliance with the gods of the heathen, therefore among the heathen shall they dwell.

3. The irresistibleness of God's judicial act. "Can thine hands be strong in the day that I shall deal with thee?" From his bar there is no appeal. Against his power it is vain to strive.

III. THE VERDICT. "Thou shall show her all her abominations." Here is threatened:

1. Self-discovery. All sin has a subtle potency to blind the judgment. Men are prone to measure themselves only by others, or to look at their conduct only in the mirror of their neighbors' conduct. But when the clear light of eternal truth flashes upon the soul, past sins start into gigantic magnitude; they are like mountains for their size.

2. Public shame. "Therefore I have made thee a reproach unto the heathen." This is a stinging verdict. Even the heathen, so much more barbarous and degraded than were the Hebrews aforetime, shall now reproach them for their flagitious deeds. The fall is all the greater if we have first climbed to some stupendous height.

3. Overwhelming affliction. "Can thine heart endure in the days that I shall deal with thee?" When Cain felt the full stress of his sentence, he cried out," My punishment is greater than I can bear!" The just wrath of the Creator: how can frail man endure it?

4. Banishment. "I will disperse thee... in the countries." In the same measure in which the Hebrews had been confident and boastful in their own land, was the gravamen of the sentence that scattered them among many nations. To be shut out from one's own land and home is a heavy stroke.

5. Abandonment. "Thou shall take thine inheritance in thyself." In other words, thou shalt shift for thyself: thou shall find no good beyond thyself. When men persist in saying to God, "Depart from me!" God will say to them, "Depart from me!" To be left to ourselves is heaviest doom.

IV. THE ULTIMATE DESIGN. "I will consume thy filthiness out of thee."

1. Purification. This abandonment is only for a time. When penalty and suffering have accomplished their end, God promised to return to them in mercy. Meanwhile, alas! many would be cut off by death. Only a remnant would partake of the distant grace. So it came to pass. The seventy years' banishment purged out effectually the spirit of idolatry. It was a severe, yet a successful, remedy!

2. Surrender. "Thou shall know that I am the Lord." This knowledge would be not only intellectual, but practical. It was a knowledge of God as Supreme King and Judge. It was a knowledge that produced fruits of obedience. "A burnt child dreads the fire:" so the painful experiences through which that generation passed left wholesome effects upon their children, Full surrender is the only safety. - D.

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KJV: Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

WEB: Moreover the word of Yahweh came to me, saying,