The whole course of Biblical revelation supports this view. It is quite true that if we were to read the New Testament for the first time, knowing nothing whatever about the Old, we should come to the conclusion that it almost entirely ignored nationality and everything which goes with it. But then the Church has always maintained that the New Testament grows by an organic life out of the Old, and presupposes it; and when we go back to that, there can be no doubt whatever about its view of nationality. The whole of the early books of the Old Testament are concerned with this, and almost nothing else. The task of Moses in the wilderness, of Joshua, of the Judges and the early Kings, is precisely to fashion Israel into a nation. So much is all attention concentrated upon this that we find a contentment with that contraction of the moral outlook which presents to many modern readers the chief stumbling block about the Old Testament. Almost everything that was serviceable to Israel is approved. Rahab is guilty of sheer treason to her own city of Jericho, but it is serviceable to Israel, and there is no word of condemnation. Jael is guilty of a very treacherous murder, but it was serviceable to Israel, so "Blessed shall she be above women in the tent." Everything is concentrated upon this primary object of fashioning Israel into a nation and persuading individual Israelites to put the welfare of the whole before the interest and ambition of their own clique or faction; and when the time came for an advance to a wider view, it came precisely not by way of saying that national divisions do not matter and that national life itself is unimportant, but by insisting that nationality is equally precious in these other nations all around Israel as it is within Israel itself. The turning point here as in so much else in the Old Testament is the Book of Amos, the first of the written prophecies. It is worth while to try to imagine the effect of those opening clauses. The prophet begins by securing a willing hearing from those to whom he writes: in other words he begins by abusing their neighbours. "Thus saith the Lord: For three transgressions of Damascus, yea for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof...." "Thus saith the Lord: For three transgressions of Gaza, yea for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof.... "Thus saith the Lord: For three transgressions of Tyre, yea for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof.... "Thus saith the Lord: For three transgressions of Edom, yea for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof.... "Thus saith the Lord: For three transgressions of the children of Ammon, yea for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof.... "Thus saith the Lord: For three transgressions of Moab, yea for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof...."