"Woe to the bloody city."--_Ezekiel 24:6._
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.
[Illustration: JEREMIAH MOURNING OVER JERUSALEM.--Lam. of Jer. 1:1, 2.]
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 their friends should
come back, and the Temple be built up again. But still, after all that
had happened, these wilful Jews would have their own way. They said
they were afraid of the king of Babylon there, and must go to Egypt to
be safe; just as if they were not safer where God told them to stay,
than they could be anywhere else. So off they went, and they carried
Jeremiah by force with them, whether he would or no.
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.