In chap. ii. Amos contrasted the popular conception of religion as worship with God's conception of it as history. He placed a picture of the sanctuary, hot with religious zeal, but hot too with passion and the fumes of wine, side by side with a great prospect of the national history: God's guidance of Israel from Egypt onwards. That is, as we said at the time, he placed an indoors picture of religion side by side with an open-air one. He repeats that arrangement here. The religious services he sketches are more pure, and the history he takes from his own day; but the contrast is the same. Again we have on the one side the temple worship--artificial, exaggerated, indoors, smoky; but on the other a few movements of God in Nature, which, though they all be calamities, have a great moral majesty upon them. The first opens with a scornful call to worship, which the prophet, letting out his whole heart at the beginning, shows to be equivalent to sin. Note next the impossible caricature of their exaggerated zeal: sacrifices every morning instead of once a year, tithes every three days instead of every three years.[291] To offer leavened bread was a departure from the older fashion of unleavened.[292] To publish their liberality was like the later Pharisees, who were not dissimilarly mocked by our Lord: _When thou doest alms, cause not a trumpet to be sounded before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men._[293] There is a certain rhythm in the taunt; but the prose style seems to be resumed with fitness when the prophet describes the solemn approach of God in deeds of doom. _Come away to Bethel and transgress, At Gilgal exaggerate your transgression! And bring every morning your sacrifices, Every three days your tithes! And send up the savour of leavened bread as a thank-offering, And call out your liberalities--make them to be heard! For so ye love_ to do, _O children of Israel: Oracle of Jehovah._ _But I on My side have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places--yet ye did not return to Me: oracle of Jehovah._ _But I on My side withheld from you the winter rain,_[294] _while it was still three months to the harvest: and I let it rain repeatedly on one city, and upon one city I did not let it rain: one lot was rained upon, and the lot that was not rained upon withered; and two or three cities kept straggling to one city to drink water, and were not satisfied--yet ye did not return to Me: oracle of Jehovah._ _I smote you with blasting and with mildew: many of your gardens and your vineyards and your figs and your olives the locust devoured--yet ye did not return to Me: oracle of Jehovah._