To speak about the end of the world sounds rather oldfashioned, but admittedly not as old-fashioned as it once was. Israel never kept its part of the covenant with God very long. The people always sinned and turned their backs upon the God who had not only delivered them from slavery, but also had led them to the Promised Land and saw to it that they were established there as an independent nation. The message, which Zephaniah had received from God and had spoken to the Israelites, was that a day of reckoning was coming, the end of all life on the earth by a terrible act of God.

Scientists today would agree with him, because they have estimated that in something like five million years in the future, the sun will cool down so that life will no longer be possible on the earth. It will just…