le
city should be overwhelmed. Even the Temple itself, the sacred house
of God, should be destroyed, and the very site abandoned.

The priests and the people who heard this denunciation were greatly
exasperated. They seized Jeremiah, and brought him before a great
judicial assembly for trial. The judges asked him why he uttered such
predictions, declaring that by doing so he acted like an enemy to his
country and a traitor, and that he deserved to die. The excitement was
very great against him, and the populace could hardly be restrained
from open violence. In the midst of this scene Jeremiah was calm and
unmoved, and replied to their accusations as follows:

"Every thing which I have said against this city and this house, I
have said by the direction of the Lord Jehovah. Instead of resenting
it, and being angry with me for delivering my message, it becomes you
to look at your sins, and repent of them, and forsake them. It may be
that by so doing God will have mercy upon you, and will avert the
calamities which otherwise will most certainly come. As for myself,
here I am in your hands. Yon can deal with me just as you think best.
Yon can kill me if you will, but you may be assured that if you do so,
you will bring the guilt and the consequences of shedding innocent
blood upon yourselves and upon this city. I have said nothing and
foretold nothing but by commandment of the Lord."[C]

[Footnote C: Jeremiah, xxvi., 12-15.]

The speech produced, as might have been expected, a great division
among the hearers. Some were more angry than ever, and were eager to
put the prophet to death. Others defended him, and insisted that he
should not die. The latter, for the time, prevailed. Jeremiah was set
at liberty, and continued his earnest expostulations with the people
on account of their sins, and his terrible annunciations of the
impending ruin of the city just as before.

These unwelcome truths being so painful for the people to hear, other
prophets soon began to appear to utter contrary predictions, for the
sake, doubtless, of the popularity which they should themselves
acquire by their promises of returning peace and prosperity. The name
of one of these false prophets was Hananiah. On one occasion,
Jeremiah, in order to present and enforce what he had to say more
effectually on the minds of the people by means of a visible symbol,
made a small wooden yoke, by divine direction, and placed it upon
his neck, as a token of t