ordinances of the altar, the duties of the priests, the ministry of the Levites, the regulations governing oblations and feasts were all set forth.[67] The immediate purpose of this revelation through the vision of the prophet appears to have been that of awakening the people of Israel to a realization of their fallen state and a conception of their departed glory. The prophet was thus commanded: "Thou son of man, shew the house to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities: and let them measure the pattern. "And if they be ashamed of all that they have done, show them the form of the house, and the fashion thereof, and the goings out thereof, and the comings in thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the ordinances thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the laws thereof: and write it in their sight, that they may keep the whole form thereof, and all the ordinances thereof, and do them. "This is the law of the house; Upon the top of the mountain the whole limit thereof round about shall be most holy. Behold, this is the law of the house."[68] THE TEMPLE OF ZERUBBABEL For three score years and ten the Jews had grieved and groaned under Babylonian rule. The greater part of the once proud Kingdom of Judah had been carried {46} away captive, and such as remained in the land of their fathers had lost their national status and had become largely merged with the Gentiles. With dreadful exactness had been fulfilled the dire prediction of Jeremiah. Through that prophet the Lord had spoken, saying: "Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts; Because ye have not heard my words, "Behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith the Lord, and Nebuchadrezzar [Nebuchadnezzar] the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all these nations around about, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and an hissing, and perpetual desolations. "Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the candle. "And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years."[69]