This chapter, to which the first six verses of chap. 7 should form the conclusion, presents several striking points. Though quite as earnest against sin as chaps. 1 3, it contains none of those vigorous detailed descriptions of particular transgressions, none of those earnest exhortations, which characterize the preceding Chapter s. It seems to have been written at a time when persecution had thinned the ranks of the pious worshippers of Jehovah, and we must evidently allow a considerable interval between its composition and that of chaps. 1 3, and 4, 5