the abomination of the Moabites ;" yea, " they made their children to pass through the fire unto Moloch," and " sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils, and shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood." Even in the very house of God itself did they place their idols ; as though they were determined to provoke the Lord to jealousy beyond a possibility of endurance ; nor were there any rites too base, too impure, or too sanguinary for them to practise in the worship of them. Many times did God punish them for these great iniquities, by delivering them into the hands of their enemies; and as often, in answer to their prayers, did he rescue them again from their op- pressors. But at last, as he tells us by the prophet, he was even " broken with their whorish heart :" and, as they would persist in their idolatries notwithstand- ing all the warnings which from time to time he had sent them by his prophets, he was constrained to exe- cute upon them the judgment threatened in our text.
This is the account given us by the inspired historian : (c All the chief priests and the people transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen, and polluted the house of the Lord which he had hallowed in Jerusalem. And the Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes and sending ; because he had com- passion on his people, and on his dwelling-place. But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy. Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man, or him that stooped for age ; he gave them all into his handc."
In confirmation of this exposition of our text, the
c 2 Chron. xxxvi. 14 — 17.