Then Je-sus went out in-to the waste lands, and was there with no one near him for more than a month. In all that time he ate no food, but spent the hours in talks with God. At last he felt weak and faint, and left the waste lands to go in search of some-thing to eat.
Now there is a fiend in this world, as we all know, who has a black heart, and can take on all sorts of shapes. He came to Eve in the form of a snake, and to Sam-son with a fair face. He tempts those to do wrong who have set out to do right, and we have to be on our guard all the time, and to watch and pray that we may be kept safe from him.
When this fiend saw Je-sus on his way to give new hearts to men, and to make them good and pure, he thought he would try and put a stop to such work. So he went out to tempt Je-sus, with the same smooth voice in which he spoke to Eve.
And he came to him and said, If thou be the Son of God change those stones in-to bread, so that thou canst eat now that thou hast need of food.
Je-sus knew why Sa-tan had come, and he told him that men should take more pains to do God's will than to get bread to eat. Next Sa-tan took Je-sus to Je-ru-sa-lem, and up to a high place where the house of God was built. And he said to him, If thou be the Son of God, throw thy-self down; for it is said, he shall give his an-gels charge to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands lest thou dash a-gainst a stone.
THE TEMPT-A-TION.
Je-sus told him that it was not right to go where it was not safe, just to try if God would keep us from harm.