bad-tempered.

So those who wrote the parchment felt it best to go more into detail,
and to put down certain things in which they felt they had done wrong in
the past, but in which they meant to do better in the time to come.

(1) They promised that they would not in future marry heathen people,
that they would not give their daughters to heathen men, or let their
sons choose heathen wives.

(2) They engaged to keep the Sabbath, and not to buy and sell on the
holy day; and they promised that if the heathen people round came to the
city gates with baskets of fruit, or vegetables, or fish on the Sabbath,
they would refuse to buy.

(3) They stated that for the future they would keep every seventh year
as a year of Sabbath. The Sabbath year had in times past been a great
blessing to the land. The one work and occupation of the Jews was
agriculture, farming of all kinds. Every seventh year God commanded that
all work was to stop; there was to be a year's universal holiday, that
the nation might have rest and leisure to think of higher things. Yet
they did not starve in the Sabbath year, for God gave them double crops
in the sixth year, enough to cover all their wants until the crops of
the eighth year were ripe. All that grew of itself during the seventh
year, all the self-sown grain that sprang up, all the fruit that came
on the olives, and the vines, and the fig-trees, was left for the poor
people to gather; they went out and helped themselves, and comfort was
brought to many a sad home, and cupboards which were often empty during
the six ordinary years were kept well filled in the Sabbath year. But
this command of God had been neglected by the Jews; it needed more faith
and trust than they had possessed, and they had let it slip. Now,
however, they promise once more to observe the Sabbath year.

The rest of the covenant concerned the amount to be contributed for the
service of God. They agreed to pay one-third of a shekel each year
towards the temple service, and to bring by turn the wood required for
the sacrifices, beside giving God, regularly and conscientiously, the
first-fruits of all they had.

This was the solemn covenant to which were fastened so many seals, this
was the agreement by which they bound themselves to the service of God.
As they went home, and shook the dust off their heads, and took off
their sacks, they went home pledged to obey and to love their God.

Which of us will follow their example? W