You're listening to Catholic Sprouts, the daily podcast for Catholic kids that strives to plant seeds of faith.

Hey there, Sprouts. Today is Thursday, December 20th, 2018.

This week on the Catholic Sprouts podcast, we are journeying through Advent with the Jesse Tree.

We started the week by looking at Ruth, who was a foreigner, but still played a big part in God's story of salvation.

She is the grandmother of King David.

Next, we looked at the great King David, who was faithful to God, who defeated the giant

Goliath, but maybe more importantly, taught us how to sing the praises of God through his beautiful work, the Psalms.

Yesterday we talked about what happened after David.

He had many descendants that became kings, and not all of them were good kings.

In fact, God had to send the prophet Elijah to go and demonstrate to them that their fake idol was not a God at all and that he alone was God.

Today, we are going to turn to a sad chapter in the history of the Israelite nation.

Now, after Elijah, he worked to convert people's hearts. God sent many more prophets after Elijah. He sent the prophet Jeremiah and others to

beg people to soften their hearts, to return to God, and to obey His commandments.

But for the most part, they didn't listen.

If you look back in the Bible when God first gave them the Ten Commandments,

which were an outline for how they were to worship him and treat each other, he said to them,

you are my people and I will be with you and protect you if you keep my commandments.

What's implied in here is that if you don't keep my commandments, then I can't protect you,

and I can't claim you as my people. The people of Israel were warned and warned, and yet they

refused to change their ways, so God could no longer protect them. Eventually another country,

the country of Babylon, came and attacked the Israelites and conquered them. They no longer

had God leading their armies, so they were weak and they were conquered.

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