8th Century Israelites were experiencing the most comfortable, successful existence they could have imagined. Their neighbors had weakened, the empires to their Northeast (Assyria) and Southwest (Egypt) were in slumps and they controlled a large portion of the major regional trade route. Life was good. Unfortunately, they missed their failures because of their certainty that the good things they were receiving had been earned by their faithfulness to God. Its a lie human beings often tell themselves- do good, get good; do evil, get evil. It is as if we assume a relationship with the Divine is a transaction-based system yielding earthly benefits. The danger in functioning that way is that we blind ourselves to authentic service in the kingdom of God because we are most concerned with our earthly situation.