as wives for themselves and their sons. He lost no time in sounding the warning of God’s adverse judgment against the wrongdoers. At his sobering reminder the Jews agreed to make a clean break from their unclean state: “Let us conclude a covenant with our God to put away all the [pagan] wives and those born from them according to the counsel of Jehovah.” (Ezra 10:3) The choice was vital. They averted the dreadful consequences of Jehovah’s wrath.

NATIONS JUDGED ACCORDING TO GOD’S STANDARD

24. Hewing to the line in connection with his righteous standard, does Jehovah limit his actions to individuals who ignore his requirements? Give examples.

²⁴ Not individuals alone, but whole nations stood or fell in times past according to whether they honored or ignored the right standard of the changeless God. Moab, Ammon and Edom, all of them Semitic nations who scorned and hated Israel, coveted their land and put on airs against Jehovah, were brought to ruin and desolation by decree of the righteous God. (Ezek. 25:1-14) The Phoenicians, dominated by commercial greed, broke covenant with Israel and began trading off captive Jews into slavery. Israel’s God brought calamity upon them first by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and later by Alexander of Greece.

25. How did God’s justice operate in connection with the entire nations of Judah and Israel, and why?

²⁵ Even the kingdoms of Judah and Israel insisted on pleasing themselves and following in the way of the pagan nations round about. Jehovah by his prophets reproved them for their filthy and immoral practices. He calls them “daughters of prostitution” and describes them as “lusting after those passionately loving [them].” However, they ignored his warnings, and he brought upon them the threatened judgment slaughter: “There will be the bringing up of a congregation against them and a making of them a frightful object and something to plunder. And the congregation must pelt them with stones, and there will be a cutting of them down with their swords. Their sons and their daughters they will kill, and with fire their houses they will burn. And I shall certainly cause loose conduct to cease out of the land.” (Ezek. 23:46-48) How foolish of those highly favored peoples to despise the very standard that Jehovah designed for their welfare and happiness!

26. How does Jehovah, through his prophet Malachi, assure his typical people of his unchangeability with respect to his righteous standard?

²⁶ Even after Ezra’s day the Jews again fell to the low moral level of the heathen peoples around them. Again by his prophet Malachi God sent solemn warning of their danger: “I will come near to you people for the judgment, and I will become a speedy witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against those swearing falsely, and against those acting fraudulently with the wages of the wage earner, with the widow and with the fatherless boy, and those turning away the alien resident, while they have not feared me. . . . For I am Jehovah; I have not changed.” (Mal. 3:5, 6) God’s view of these specifically mentioned wrongs remains the same. He has not changed and never will in this respect. He will not overlook the willful violators of his righteous standard.

NOT SWAYED BY THE CROWD

27. What is to be said about the majority view of imperfect humans in all such matters?

²⁷ The individual or nation that is unduly influenced by the conduct of the majority of imperfect and sinful humans is led into a snare. Those who patterned their lives after the example of the majority in Noah’s day, for example, proved to be in the wrong and God’s adverse judgment came upon them. Safety was not in numbers. The popular, the orthodox way of viewing matters is seldom the way that accords with God’s will.

28. What right mental attitude was displayed by all the faithful men of old who are commended in God’s written Word?

²⁸ On the other hand, those who viewed with suspicion the easy road of the majority were the ones who chose to keep their lives in harmony with God’s will. Noah, Abraham, Job, Jacob, Moses and other faithful servants of Jehovah followed the way of the minority. They were unswayed by the preponderance of numbers. They knew that the Creator’s thoughts and ways were far loftier and of far greater account than the thoughts and ways of men. (Isa. 55:9) They chose the future, everlasting reward of life in a clean New Order promised by God, rather than to have “the temporary enjoyment of sin,” or the satisfaction of pleasing themselves. (Heb. 11:25) Soon now such faithful ones will receive that rich reward.

29. What are some of the conclusions that God-fearing persons of today should reach?

²⁹ It is the course of wisdom, today, to see in these choice records of human history set out in the Bible the counsel and direction so urgently needed in this day of global crisis. How wise to recognize that no individual can properly claim the right to run his own life just as he pleases, without regard for the interest and welfare of his fellow creatures and without respect for the right standard of conduct decreed by the Creator! Those individuals or nations who presume to act independently of God’s arrangement, who violate the moral standard that he has set up to guide his creatures, are headed for disaster.

30. Of what can we be assured relative to God’s dealings with people of the past?

³⁰ God’s dealings with those who in the past either honored or despised his righteous standard of conduct are of vital moment to us who live today. Why? Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, answers: “All the things that were written aforetime were written for our instruction, that through our endurance and through the comfort from the Scriptures we might have hope.” (Rom. 15:4) Meantime we can be assured that God’s standard for human conduct does not change, for Jehovah is rightly described as “the Father of the celestial lights, and with him there is not a variation of the turning of the shadow.” (Jas. 1:17) He is, indeed, the changeless, the everlasting God.

Christian Morality

“The minding of the flesh means death, but the minding of the spirit means life and peace.”—Rom. 8:6.

1. In sending his own beloved Son to earth, what great change did Jehovah institute, and why?

BECAUSE Abraham’s natural descendants continually fell away from the righteous standard he set up to govern their conduct, Jehovah cast them away from being his special possession, and proceeded to gather together those who would form a new nation for his