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 and prosperity to his nation. These years of peace brought little happiness, however, to the common people of Israel. They had already become so poverty-stricken during the long years of petty but cruel wars, under the earlier kings since Solomon, that they were practically at the mercy of a small class of nobles and wealthy merchants who grew richer all the time while the people grew poorer. =Evil days.=--These rich men used false weights and measures. In buying wheat from the farmer they would use heavy weights, and get more than was right; in selling to the poor of the cities they used light weights, and so gave out little for much. They corrupted courts and judges, so that no poor man could get his rights. They charged enormous rates of interest for the money which the poor were obliged to borrow. All over the land the mass of the people were living in hovels and selling their sons and their daughters into slavery to keep from starving, while the rich men and their families lived in luxury and in wasteful, extravagant display. None of this shameful injustice seemed to weigh heavily on any man's conscience, for they were careful to keep up all the sacrifices to Jehovah. And was not Jehovah showing his pleasure by granting them these long years of peace and prosperity? They forgot the old lessons of Jehovah's justice which the nation had learned from Moses. Even Moses, according to their traditions, had given laws about sacrifices and offerings. These seemed to be the essential thing. So they kept on offering up costly sacrifices at their great temples and shrines, with stately and gorgeous ceremonials, and thought to themselves, "How pleased Jehovah must be!" AMOS There came one day to King Jeroboam's own shrine at Bethel a man in the garb of a shepherd and speaking in the name of Jehovah, like the prophets. But what strange words are these which he utters? ="I hate, I despise your feasts, and I will take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Yea, though ye offer me your ... meal-offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace-offerings of your fat beasts. Take away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. But let judgment roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream."= What this shepherd prophet was proclaiming was a religion in which burnt-offerings, or sacrificial ceremonies of any kind had little or no place, but which expressed itself in justice and righteousness toward one's fellow men. What Jehovah wants is not sacrifices at all, he said, but to stop cheating the poor: to throw away your false balances, and set free the slave.