By and by special buildings were set apart called synagogues.  As time went on these synagogue services rather than the services in the temple, became the most important part of the Jewish religion.  Our morning and evening worship in the Christian Church grew out of the synagogue service.  It was the beginning of that worship of which Jesus spoke when he said:  The hour cometh when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem shall ye worship the Father....  But ... the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.

STUDY TOPICS

1.  Read 2 Kings 25, or Daniel 1.

2.  Mention some other temptations which must have come to the Jews, in Babylon, besides the temptation to worship idols.  Consider, for example, their new experiences as traders.

3.  What are some good ways in which we may be helped to be true to God to-day when we are away from home.

CHAPTER XXII

UNDYING HOPES OF THE JEWS

As the Jewish exiles were led away to Babylon they asked themselves over and over again, “Is this the end of our nation?” It seemed like the end.  Their capital city lay in ruins.  Their king was blinded and in chains.  All the most intelligent people in the country were being led to a distant land, from which most of them would probably never return.  The iron rule of the Babylonians was everywhere supreme.

There are other nations and races whose people might not have cared so much even if this had been the end of their national existence.  But the Hebrews from the beginning were proud of their race and ambitious for its glory.  They believed that it had been promised to Abraham, their ancestor, that they should become a great nation in their land of Canaan.  This hope had grown stronger and stronger.  Stories of the greatness of King David were handed down from fathers to their children.  To the best men and women among them the great teachings of such prophets as Amos and Isaiah were even more worthy of pride.  “We have a knowledge of the true God,” they said, “such as no other nation has.  Surely there is a great future before us.”  And now all these hopes seemed lost forever.

=The discouragement of the poor people in Canaan.=—­Those who had been left behind in Canaan when the Babylonians conquered the land were even more hopeless and wretched.  The exiles soon made a place for themselves in the busy, prosperous land of Babylonia.  They earned money and lived in comfort.  But the farmers on the stony hills of Judaea suffered untold hardships.  Not only were they poor; they were also harassed by bands of robbers.  The city of Jerusalem, which had protected them, lay in ashes.  The Babylonian governor did not help them.  He was there only to collect taxes and tribute.  So the old enemies, the robber tribes from the desert, came in and burned and murdered and stole as they pleased.  It is not strange that many of these poor people felt that all was over for the Hebrew or Jewish nation.  Many of them ceased to worship Jehovah and became heathen, like the other tribes around Canaan.