ISRAEL DID NOT want to be a holy nation. Israel wanted to be a nation like all the other nations , a nation like Egypt, like Syria. She wanted clout. She wanted security. She wanted a place in the sun. It was her own way she wanted, not God’s way; and when the prophets got after her for it, she got rid of the prophets, and when God’s demands seemed too exorbitant, God’s promises too remote, she took up with all the other gods who still get our votes and our money and our 9 A.M. to 5 P.M. energies, because they are gods who could not care less whether we are holy or not, and promise absolutely everything we really want and absolutely nothing we really need.

Frederick Buechner