DISOBEDIENCE after the flood brought "confusion of tongues" as a punishment. So long as groups of men speaking a common tongue could live out their own life without much contact with other groups, the full effect of this calamity was not felt. But in these last days, when there has been a comparative annihilation of distance, and when an event in any part of the world may have immediate devastating consequences for all the world, we are experiencing in full measure the effects of that which happened at Babel. If God compared the peace efforts of Israel's leaders at the time of the overthrow of the kingdom to a ramshackle wall, daubed with untempered mortar, to what can the efforts of the leaders today be compared when they try to construct a world out of the discordant elements of every nation? "Because they have seduced my people, saying, Peace; and there was no peace; and one built up a wall, and lo, others daubed it with untempered mortar; say unto them which daub it with untempered mortar, that it shall fall: there shall be an overflowing shower, and ye 0 great hailstones, shall fall; and a stormy wind shall rend it" (Ezekiel 13:10,11).

JOHN CARTER, The Letter to the Hebrews, page 68