chapter viii

. 6.) _I have given you want of bread in all your places, yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord. I have also with-holden the rain from you when there were yet three months unto the harvest――I have smitten you with blasting and mildew: your gardens and your vineyards, the palmer worm devoured.――I have sent among you the pestilence after the manner of_ Egypt; _your young men have I slain with the sword――I have overthrown some of you, as God overthrew_ Sodom _and_ Gomorrah, _and ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning; yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord_, (Amos iv. 6‒11.)

16. In consequence of their resolution not to return, they would not endure sound doctrine, or those that spake it. They _said to the seers, see not, and to the prophets, prophesy not unto us right things――Speak unto us smooth things――Cause the Holy One of_ Israel _to cease from before us_, (Isaiah xxx. 10, 11.) But _they hated him that rebuked in the gate, and they abhorred him that spake uprightly_, (Amos v. 10.) Accordingly, _thy people_, (saith God to _Ezekiel_) _still are talking against thee, by the walls, and in the doors of the houses_, (