It was only from oral teaching that these Asian Christians knew of those lessons which we now can quote as the earliest messages to the Church of Christ. The Scripture was to them as yet the Scripture of the Old Testament, and to this St. Peter points them for the confirmation which it supplies. And his quotation is worthy of notice both for its manner and its matter: _Because it is contained in Scripture, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief corner-stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be put to shame._ The passage is from Isaiah (xxviii. 16); but a comparison with that verse shows us that the Apostle has not quoted all the words of the prophet, and that what he has given corresponds much more closely with the Greek of the Septuagint than with the Hebrew. The latter concludes, "He that believeth shall not make haste," and contains some words not represented in the version of the Seventy. The variations which St. Peter accepts are such as to assure us that for him (and the same is true for the rest of the Apostles) the purport, the spiritual lessons, of the word were all which he counted essential. Neither Christ Himself nor His Apostles adhere in quotation to precise verbal exactness.[8] They felt that there lay behind the older record so many deep meanings for which the fathers of old were not prepared, but which Gospel light made clear. To somewhat of this fuller sense the translators of the Septuagint seem to have been guided.[9] They lived nearer to the rising of the day-star. Through their labours God was in part preparing the world for the message of Christ. The words which Isaiah was guided to use express the confidence of a believer who was looking onward to God's promise as in the future: "He shall not make haste." He knows that the purpose of God will be brought to pass; that, as the prophet elsewhere says, "the Lord will hasten it in its time" (lx. 22). Man is not to step in, Jacob-like, to anticipate the Divine working. [8] For illustration of what is here said, Matt. xxi. 16 may be compared with Psalm viii. 2, Acts xv. 15-17 with Amos ix. 11, 12, and Eph. iv. 8 with Psalm lxviii. 18; and the list might be largely increased. [9] Hence the New Testament writers quote from the LXX. in a very large proportion. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews quotes nothing else.