But God went on loving Adam and Eve even when He knew that He must punish them, and He tried to make them good in this way. He thought, 'I will send My dear Son down to the earth. He shall become a little child, and grow up to be a man, and shall die for the sins of the world.'
Hundreds and hundreds of years passed away before Jesus came. But a great many of the people who lived in Palestine were expecting Him. God had said that when Jesus came, He would be a Jew. The Jews were very proud about that. They often talked about the coming of Jesus. When they talked about Him, they called Him the Messiah.
Just before Jesus was born, the Jews were very unhappy. Roman soldiers had been fighting with them, and had conquered them, and made them servants of the great Roman king. He was called Augustus Caesar, and he gave the Jews another king called Herod. He was very wicked.
[Illustration: Map of Palestine at the time of Christ.]
The Jews longed to get rid of Herod, and many of them thought, 'It will be all right when the Messiah comes. The Messiah will fight against the Romans; He will drive them away from our land; and then He will be our King instead of that wicked Herod.' But only a few Jews remembered that Jesus was coming to fight against Satan and against sin.
The place where the Jews lived had four or five names. It was called the Land of Canaan at the first, then the Land of Promise, and then the Land of Israel. But we call it the Holy Land, or Palestine.
If you look at the map of Palestine, you will see a river running from the north of Palestine to the south. That river is called the Jordan. And Palestine is divided into four parts,—one at the top (we call that the north), one at the bottom (we call that the south), one in the middle, and one on the other or eastward side of the Jordan.
The part in the North is called Galilee. The part in the south is called Judaea. The part in the middle is called Samaria. The part on the other side of the Jordan is called Perea.