1. Who were the two prophets? 2. Where did Jeremiah prophesy? 3. Where did Ezekiel prophesy? 4. What did they both tell the people? 5. Would the people mind them? 6. What did King Jehoiakim do to Jeremiah's prophecies? 7. What did King Zedekiah do to Jeremiah? 8. What did Ezekiel take? 9. What did he draw on the tile? 10. What did he put round the tile? 11. Where did he lie? 12. What did he eat? 13. What was the tile to stand for? 14. Who were coming round Jerusalem? 15. What would they set up?
SECOND READING.
"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.
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.
JEREMIAH MOURNING OVER JERUSALEM.—Lam. of Jer. 1:1, 2.