In the midst of all this the Lord labored patiently for their reformation, sending his servants, the prophets, to them, to teach them the way of life and encourage them to observe the statutes and judgments of the Lord. When persuasion failed, then warning was given of calamities and judgments, followed by the chastening hand of God; but all to no purpose; reform they would not. They killed the prophets, and persecuted those who attempted to follow their counsels until they filled up the cup of their iniquity, and the Spirit of the Lord entirely withdrew from them, and then began that series of wars in the sixth century B. C., which finally ended in the extermination of the entire people.[B] The history of ancient Israel, as recorded in the Bible, is very similar to this. The Lord took them from the bondage of Egypt, to sanctify them a people unto himself. He gave them Moses and Aaron and other wise, faithful men to be their teachers, and led them from the dominion of Egypt towards a choice land, their journey being attended by such displays of God's glory and power as are seldom witnessed by the inhabitants of the earth. The Gospel of the Son of God was first presented to them, but when they would not abide its requirements, the law of Moses, a less excellent law, was given to be their school-master to bring them to Christ.[C] And when they complained against the free constitution that had been given them, and would no longer sustain the judges whom the Lord raised up to be their leaders, he gave them a kingdom according to their desires,[D] but warned them of the bondage to which it was liable to lead. [Footnote B: See the Book of Ether, Book of Mormon, for their history.] [Footnote C: Gal. iii; Heb. iv.] [Footnote D: I. Sam. viii.] The consequences of obedience to the laws which the Lord gave them through Moses, even before the death of that great leader, were plainly set before them; and surely the advantages that are there set forth, leave nothings to be desired, no matter how ambitious of place, power, honor, wealth, glory and dominion a nation might be. And, on the other hand, in case of their forsaking their God and his laws, the judgments, calamities, distress, wars, famines, pestilences, dishonor and destruction that follow, as a consequence of their apostasy from God, are drawn with such vividness, even down to the minutest detail, that had these things been written after they came to pass--after the threatened judgments were visited upon Israel, and especially upon Judah--in a word, if they had been written as history instead of prophecy--they could scarcely be more circumstantial than the prophetic words of Moses.[E] [Footnote E: See Deuteronomy xxviii.]