God is restored, when the land shall once again, and more than ever before, flow with milk and honey, and " the wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose."
Now, in conclusion, to sum up the negative part of the answer to the question put by the deputation from Bethel. Its purport was as follows: There is no occasion as yet to abrogate the observances of the fasts in which you call to mind the calamities which you and your fathers have brought upon the land, by your evil ways and doings, for the underlying cause of the evil which came upon you namely, sin and rebellion against the word which God spake to you through the former prophets you have not yet truly repented of. Your fasting and mourning, however, are in themselves nothing to God so long as they are not the accompaniment of a real sorrow for sin, and a heartdesire to do His will as expressed in His moral law. Take warning, therefore, from the experience of your fathers who kept on hardening their hearts, until there was no more remedy, and great wrath from God came upon them lest the same, and something worse yet, happen to you. The positive part of the answer, which tells when and how the fasts shall be abrogated, yea, turned into feasts, follows in chap. viii.
