Chapter XXI.—Sabbaths were instituted on account of the people’s sins, and not
for a work of righteousness.
“Moreover, that God enjoined you to keep the Sabbath, and impose on you other precepts
for a sign, as I have already said, on account of your unrighteousness, and that of your
fathers,—as He declares that for the sake of the nations, lest His name be profaned among
them, therefore He permitted some of you to remain alive,—these words of His can prove
to you: they are narrated by Ezekiel thus: ‘I am the Lord your God; walk in My statutes, and
keep My judgments, and take no part in the customs of Egypt; and hallow My Sabbaths;
and they shall be a sign between Me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your
God. Notwithstanding ye rebelled against Me, and your children walked not in My statutes,
neither kept My judgments to do them: which if a man do, he shall live in them. But they
polluted My Sabbaths. And I said that I would pour out My fury upon them in the wilderness,
to accomplish My anger upon them; yet I did it not; that My name might not be altogether
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profaned in the sight of the heathen. I led them out before their eyes, and I lifted up Mine
hand unto them in the wilderness, that I would scatter them among the heathen, and disperse
them through the countries; because they had not executed My judgments, but had despised
My statutes, and polluted My Sabbaths, and their eyes were after the devices of their fathers.
Wherefore I gave them also statutes which were not good, and judgments whereby they
shall not live. And I shall pollute them in their own gifts, that I may destroy all that openeth
the womb, when I pass through them.’236
236 Ezek. xx. 19–26.
Chapter XXI.—Sabbaths were instituted on account of the people’s sins, and not for a work of righteousness.
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Chapter XXI.—Sabbaths were instituted on account of the people’s sins, and…