o speak of
the things which went on, especially at those sacrifices to
Ashtaroth, the queen of heaven, of which they were so fond. They
choose the worse part, and refused the better; and they were filled
with the fruit of their own devices, as every unrepenting sinner
surely will be.

But did the Jews of Judea and their king escape, who had thus
brought the king of Assyria down to murder their own countrymen, and
lay that fair land waste? Not they. A very few years more, the
Assyrians were back again, and overran Judea itself, laying the
country waste with fire and sword, till nothing was left to them,
but the mere city of Jerusalem. And so they, too, were filled with
the fruit of their own devices. In their madness they had destroyed
their brethren, the people of Israel, who ought to have been a
safeguard for them to the north; now there was nothing and no man to
prevent the Assyrians, or any other invaders, from pouring right
down into their land. Truly says Solomon, 'He that diggeth a pit,
shall fall into it, and he who breaketh a hedge, a serpent shall
bite him.' From that day, Judah became weaker and weaker, standing
all alone. Good king Hezekiah, good king Josiah, could only stave
off her ruin for a few years; a little while longer, and her cup was
full too, and the Babylonians came and swept the Jews away into
captivity, as the Assyrians had swept away Israel, and that fair
land lay desolate for many a year.

The king of Assyria, we read, after he had carried away the people
of Israel, brought heathens from Assyria, and settled them in the
Holy Land, instead of the Israelites. But the Lord sent lions among
them, we read; the land, I suppose, lying waste, the wild beasts
increased, and became very dangerous: so these poor ignorant
settlers sent to the king of Assyria, to beg for a Jewish priest, to
teach them, as they said, the manner of the god of that land, that
they might worship him, and not be terrified by the lions any more.
It was a simple, confused notion of theirs: but it brought a
blessing with it; for the king of Assyria sent them one of the
Jewish priests who had been carried away from Samaria; and he came
and lived at Beth-el, and taught them to fear the Lord. So these
poor people got some confused notion of the one true God: but they
mixed it up sadly with their old heathen idolatry, and made gods of
their own, and some of them even burnt their children in the fire,
to Adrammelech an