Thus severely left to themselves and to the petty hostilities of their neighbours, the Jews appear to have sunk into a careless and sordid manner of life. They entered the period, it is true, with some sense of their distinction.[990] In exile they had suffered God’s anger,[991] and had been purged by it. But out of discipline often springs pride, and there is no subtler temptation of the human heart. The returned Israel felt this to the quick, and it sorely unfitted them for encountering the disappointment and hardship which followed upon the completion of the Temple. The tide of hope, which rose to flood with that consummation, ebbed rapidly away, and left God’s people struggling, like any ordinary tribe of peasants, with bad seasons and the cruelty of their envious neighbours. Their pride was set on edge, and they fell, not as at other periods of disappointment into despair, but into a bitter carelessness and a contempt of their duty to God. This was a curious temper, and, so far as we know, new in Israel. It led them to despise both His love and His holiness.[992] They neglected their Temple dues, and impudently presented to their God polluted bread and blemished beasts which they would not have dared to offer to their Persian governor.[993] Like people like priest: the priesthood lost not reverence only, but decency and all conscience of their office.[994] They _despised the Table of the Lord_, ceased to instruct the people and grew partial in judgment. As a consequence they became contemptible in the eyes of the community. Immorality prevailed among all classes: _every man dealt treacherously with his brother_.[995] Adultery, perjury, fraud and the oppression of the poor were very rife.