wasted and desolate, as is now the case.’  Therefore now thus saith Jehovah, the God of hosts, the God of Israel, ’Why do you commit a great Crime against yourselves to cut off from you man and woman, infant and sucking child, out of the midst of Judah so that ye leave none remaining, in that ye provoke me to anger with the work of your hands, offering sacrifice to other gods in the land of Egypt, whither ye have gone to sojourn, that ye may be cut off, and that ye may be an object of cursing and a reproach among all the nations of the earth?  Have ye forgotten the crimes of your fathers, and the crimes of the kings of Judah, and the crimes of their princes, which they committed in the land of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?  They are not humbled even to this day, neither have they feared nor walked in my law nor in my statutes that I set before you and before your fathers.’

[Sidenote:  Jer. 44:11-13, 22] ’Therefore thus saith Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel:  “Behold, I set my face against you for evil to cut off the remnant of Judah in the land of Egypt, and they shall fall by the sword and by famine; they shall die, small and great, and they shall be an object of execration, of astonishment, of cursing, and of reproach.  For I will punish those who dwell in the land of Egypt, as I have punished Jerusalem, by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence, so that none of the remnant of Judah, who have gone into the land of Egypt to reside there, shall escape or be left to return to the land of Judah, to which they have a desire to return; for none shall return except as fugitives.  And they who escape the sword shall return from the land of Egypt to the land of Judah, few in number; and all the remnant of Judah, who have gone into the land of Egypt to sojourn there shall know whose word shall be confirmed, mine or theirs."’

I. The Significance of the Destruction of the Hebrew State.  The destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. resulted in a mighty Transformation of the life and thought of Israel.  It marked the final Overthrow of the old Hebrew kingdoms, and the gradual rise of that new and important factor in human history known as Judaism.  For over three centuries the Jews who survived the great catastrophe were helpless under the rule of the great world powers which in succession conquered southwestern Asia.  For the great majority of the Jewish race it represented the beginning of that long exile which has continued until the present.  Scattered from the desert of Sahara to the distant land of China, and from the Black Sea to the Indian Ocean, the different groups of exiles quickly began to adapt themselves to their changed surroundings and to absorb the new knowledge and the powerful influences which gradually transformed their beliefs and ideals.  While their vision was vastly broadened by this contact, the danger and horror of being completely engulfed in the great heathen world bound the faithful more closely together, and in time made Judaism the solid,