been untrue to our promises;
but never again will we neglect His Book, nor forget His Law.'

'_And all the people gathered themselves together as one man...; and
they spake unto Ezra the scribe to bring the Book of the Law of Moses,
which the Lord had commanded to Israel._' (Nehemiah viii. 1.)

A solemn day that was, as we read in the Book of Nehemiah, a day of
real returning to the Lord. Picture them standing there, those men and
women and little children of Jerusalem; their faces would be worn with
toil and hardship.

On a raised platform of wood stood Ezra ready with the rolls of the
Books of the Law, and beside him were the interpreters.

For the people had been so long in a strange land that scarcely any of
them could speak Hebrew; that is, the old Hebrew language in which King
David wrote. If the Law of God was to be impressed afresh on the
nation's heart that day, the scribes, the writers and the teachers must
translate it into the language of their heathen conquerors.

'_So they read in the Book of the Law of God distinctly, and gave the
sense, and caused them to understand the reading._' (Nehemiah viii. 8.)

Since those days of Ezra, the Bible has been translated into nearly
every known language. It is most interesting, therefore, to read in
the Bible itself about what was most likely the very first translation
of all--and this not a _written_ translation, remember.

Now when the people heard the words of God's Book they were very sad;
for now at last they understood how deeply they had sinned against Him.

They had been proud of their Bible, and had rightly felt it to be a
great treasure; but now they saw that the words of the Bible must be
shown forth in the lives of those who believe. To honour God's Book is
not enough; we must obey it.

The Jewish people did not again learn to speak the old language of
their nation. Yet all the copies of the Books of the Law, and the
Books of the Prophets, the Psalms, and those writings which tell of the
history of the Lord's people--that is, the whole of the Old
Testament--were still written in the ancient tongue.

So it came to pass, after a while, that the Bible could only be read by
the learned people; for the words in which the Law of God was given had
become a 'dead language'--that is, a language that had ceased to be
used in daily life at all.

Before the death of Ezra and Nehemiah, or else very soon after, the
scribes of Jerusalem--that is, the writ