shrines and hired their own special priests. It was the business of
these men to know just how a sacrifice must be offered in order that
it might be pleasing to Jehovah. There were certain rules and
regulations handed down from generation to generation. There were
certain kinds of animals which could not be offered. It was important
to know just what parts of each victim were to be burned. The various
meal offerings had to be prepared in a certain way. Yeast could not be
used, nor honey.

=The increasing number of priestly rules.=--As the centuries passed
more and more rules were worked out by the priests. This was their
whole business in life, and, of course, they made much of it. More and
more different kinds of offerings were invented; for example, incense,
which was the burning of herbs which made a sweet-smelling smoke. The
books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, especially Leviticus, are
largely composed of these rules for sacrifices. The animals had to be
washed, killed, and skinned, according to certain directions. The
blood had to be disposed of according to strict rule--some placed in
the horns of the altar, some on the priests, some on the worshiper
bringing the offering, and so on. And the more there were of these
rules, the more priests there had to be to remember and enforce them.
Thus it came about that all too frequently sacrifices came to be the
chief thing in religion. Religion meant sacrifices and not much else.


THE REIGN OF JEROBOAM II

Jeroboam II, who reigned over the northern kingdom of Israel for some
forty years, beginning about B.C. 790, was in some ways like Ahab, who
lived a century earlier. He was victorious in war and brought peace