Isaiah 3:8 For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen: because their tongue and their doings are against the LORD… Latterly it had been ignobly used as an office for the State lotteries which are demoralising Italy. In cutting the wall for the purposes of that office, the whole building had been weakened. The event spoke as a parable whose meaning could not be missed. That great, stately tower, with its history of a thousand years, fell, because of the little lottery office which cut into it and weakened it. There is an application of the parable to our own national life. Is it possible that a great empire like ours can fall through the gambling habit — the lowest and meanest of the vices — insidiously spreading through all classes of the community? Is it possible to conceive that such a vice should so undermine the character of the people, that the stately structure, built by heroic men in the past, shall crash down in swift ruin at the end? (R. F. Horton, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen: because their tongue and their doings are against the LORD, to provoke the eyes of his glory. |