The ideal and the real being thus at variance with each other, the prophet felt that his mission was to preach, to exhort, to denounce and to arouse. The Judæan community in the Captivity was now more than ever divided into two camps: on the one side were the pious and patriotic; on the other, the worldly and the callous. The former, who had become timid and despondent from continued persecution and suffering, dared not come forward at this anxious time to oppose their persecutors; they were oppressed by the sorrowful thought that God had forsaken His people and had forgotten them, whilst their enemies called out mockingly, "Let the Lord be glorified and we will see your joy." (Isaiah lxvi. 5.) Now the aim of the great unknown prophet was to encourage the one class to action, and to move the other to penitence and improvement. He announced that God's salvation was at hand, and that if the worldly and selfish persisted in their evil ways, they would reap the punishment of their sins, whilst the pious would be rewarded with undimmed happiness. He finally depicted the coming deliverance and the return, when all the scattered of Judah and Israel would assemble on the holy mount of Jerusalem. The king Nabonad and the Babylonian people probably felt less anxiety about the result of the war between Persia and Babylon than did the Judæan exiles. For the Judæans were alternating between the highest hopes and the most desponding fears; the preservation or the downfall of the Jewish race hung upon the issue of this war. The Babylonians, on the contrary, looked with indifference, it might be said, upon all of Cyrus's preparations. But one night, when they were dancing and carousing at one of their orgies, a large and powerful army appeared before the bastions of the city. The Babylonians were utterly unprepared for resistance, and when day broke, Babylon was filled with the enemy. Thus, as the prophet had foretold, the city of Babylon fell (539), but the king and the people escaped their predicted doom. Cyrus was a humane conqueror. The disgusting idolatry of the Babylonians was uprooted when their city was taken. The religion of the victorious Persians and Medes was pure in comparison with that of the Babylonians. They worshipped only two or three gods, and abhorred the image-worship of the Babylonians, and perhaps destroyed their idols.