Hi again!

Today’s story is from 2 Kings 24-25.

So Israel had disobeyed God. They had worshipped other gods and statues besides God. And because they disobeyed, they were taken away from the promised land to Assyria.

The one tribe (big family) called Judah had been saved so far…but they also worshipped other pretend gods and they disobeyed God. The prophets told the people of Judah to stop and to come back and worship only God, but they didn’t.

Nebuchadnezzar from Babylon came and invaded Judah. Twice. He and his men took all the people and made them move. They also put everything on fire…the peoples’ houses and even God’s temple, the church. They took all the special things from the temple and destroyed the whole city.

God’s people had to leave for 70 years.

How do you think that made God feel?

He could have stopped them from destroying everything, because He’s God and He can do ANYTHING. But He didn’t. God let it happen as a consequence for His people.

Sometimes when we make bad choices, we can say we’re sorry, but our mom and dad still have to give us a consequence. A consequence helps us make it right and it helps us remember to make better choices next time. God LOVES His people and He wanted them to make better choices next time, so He let them be taken away (kind of like a really long time out!) It was a very sad time. God had saved His people from Egypt and brought them to this land. He had given them every good thing…but they were not thankful. They did not listen to God, or worship only Him. They did not do all the things He said were good for them and now they were very very sad.

(We will have a few stories from the time in exile over the next few days. And then we’ll learn of the return to the promised land.)

For our craft today, we painted some fiery pictures and then added a silhouette of the temple and the sad people leaving Judah.

Thanks for joining us. Love to you all!