In the seventh month. The murder of Gedaliah, whom the king of Babylon made governor of the land, completed the calamities of Jerusalem, in the voluntary, but prohibited exile to Egypt, for fear lest the murder should be avenged on them1. Did ye at all fast unto Me, Me2? God emphatically rejects such fasting as their’s had been, as something, unutterably alien from Him, to Me, Me3! Yet the fasting and mourning had been real, but irreligious, like remorse for ill-deeds, which has self only for