Those who trust in GOD

are like Zion Mountain:

Nothing can move it, a rock-solid mountain

you can always depend on.

Mountains encircle Jerusalem,

and GOD encircles his people—

always has and always will.

The fist of the wicked

will never violate

What is due the righteous,

provoking wrongful violence.

Be good to your good people, GOD,

to those whose hearts are right!

GOD will round up the backsliders,

corral them with the incorrigibles.

Peace over Israel!

PSALM 125

Judea was designed to produce in her inhabitants the sense of seclusion and security, though not to such a degree as to relieve them from the attractions of the great world, which throbbed closely past, or to relax in them those habits of discipline, vigilance, and valour, which are the necessary elements of a nation’s character.

In the position of Judea there was not enough to tempt her people to put their confidence in herself, but there was enough to encourage them to defend their freedom and a strenuous life. And while the isolation of their land was sufficient to confirm their calling to a discipline and destiny separate from other peoples, it was not so complete as to keep them in ignorance of the world or to release them from those temptations to mix with the world, in combating which their discipline and destiny could alone be realised.

GEORGE ADAM SMITH