and calves were slaughtered daily to supply the tables, and new
instruments were invented to furnish music at the feasts.

This, however, was only one side of the picture of Samaria in its days
of greatest prosperity. The "farmer" knew that there was another, much
less beautiful. While the rich were growing richer, the poor were
growing poorer.

The rich, thinking only of themselves, their wealth, their power,
their good times, cheated and oppressed the poor unmercifully. They
gave false weights and short measure and sold at high prices, poor
stuff at that. They would drive a poor man into debt and have him sold
into slavery; so that human beings became a drug on the market, as it
were. In fact, at the very auction which the "farmer" watched that
day, one poor man was sold for the price of a pair of shoes. The poor
had even no chance to get justice in the courts. The greed for money
placed corrupt officials in office and the offenders bribed them to
the undoing of the poor and needy.

Strange to say, the Israelites, in whose midst there were those who
lived such scandalous lives and treated the poor people so
outrageously--the Israelites--nevertheless, believed in their hearts
that they had not forgotten God. They believed that God was with them;
that He loved them above all other peoples; that He guarded and
protected them; that He sent them all their blessings of prosperity
and peace.

This is the way they reasoned it out: Had not God helped them to
defeat Judah? Had not God been with them when they crushed their
ancient foe, Syria? Did not God send them rain in season, so that