1-2. What important decision the Jews needed to make? (Ezra 1:​2-4)

 THE king announce that the Jews was free to go back to their home in Israel. They were slave in Babylon for about 70 years. (Read Ezra 1:​2-4.) Only Jehovah was able to make this one happen. Why we say this one? Because Babylon never use to free their slave them. (Isa. 14:​4, 17) But they capture Babylon, and the new king told the Jews to go back to their country. Because of this, all the Jews, especially family heads, was having one decision to make. The decision that was to leave Babylon or to stay there. Maybe that decision was not easy to make. Why?

² Maybe plenty people was old to travel that long distance. And most of the Jews was born in Babylon. They never live anywhere before. They felt that Babylon was their home and Israel was the place their great grandparents came from. Some of the Jews was very rich in Babylon. So maybe it was hard for some of them to leave their fine-fine houses or their good business to go live somewhere they not know.

3. What blessing Jehovah was coming give the Israelite them who went to Israel?

³ The faithful Jews knew that the benefits they were coming get if they go back was coming be more than any sacrifices they make. The most important blessing that was to worship Jehovah. Even though they was having more than 50 temples in Babylon for false worship, but they was not having any temple to worship Jehovah. They was not having altar in Babylon for the Israelites to offer the sacrifice them that the Moses law talk about. And they was not having priest them that was organize to make the sacrifice for them. Beside that one, the people that was worshipping false God was plenty pass the people that was  worshipping Jehovah. So plenty of the Jews who love Jehovah was happy to go back to Israel to start worshipping Jehovah the right way again.

4. What Jehovah promise to give the Jews who will go back to Israel?

⁴ The trip from Babylon to Israel use to take about four months and it was not easy to make that trip. But Jehovah promise that he will move anything that will want stop them from going back to Israel. Isaiah wrote: “Clear up the way of Jehovah! Make a straight highway through the desert for our God. . . . The rough ground must become level, and the rugged ground a valley plain.” (Isa. 40:​3, 4) Just imagine the straight road passing between the mountain. People will be happy to travel on it! It will be very easy to travel on the straight highway than to be climbing hills and coming down. Also it will be fast to travel on it.

5. What name Isaiah gave the highway between Babylon and Israel?

⁵ Today they get plenty highway them that they can call by name or number. The highway Isaiah talk about also get name. But that was not real road. Isaiah say: “A highway will be there, yes, a way called the Way of Holiness. The unclean one will not travel on it.” (Isa. 35:⁠8) What this promise mean for the Israelite them way back? And what it mean for us today?

6. Why they call this road holy?

⁶ “The Way of Holiness”, this name really fine for the highway! Why they call this road holy? Jehovah will not allow any Jew to worship false god, practice immorality, or other serious sin in Israel. The Jew them that was coming back suppose to be “holy people” to their God. (Deut. 7:6) But this one not mean that the people who leave from Babylon will not make any change in their life to make Jehovah happy.

7. What big changes some of the Jews was having to make? Give one example.

⁷ Just what we say before, most of the Jews were born in Babylon, and plenty of them were use to the way the Babylonians use to think and do things. Plenty years after the first group of Jews came back, Ezra got to know that some of the Jews marry women that was worshipping false god. (Ex. 34:​15, 16; Ezra 9:​1, 2) Then later on, Governor Nehemiah mouth was full because some of the children that they born in Israel never knew the language the Jews use to speak. (Deut. 6:​6, 7; Neh. 13:​23, 24) How you think those small children them was coming to love and worship Jehovah if they not know Hebrew. This language was the main language they write the Bible in. (Ezra 10:​3, 44) So the Jews was having big changes to make. But it was coming to be very easy for them to make changes in Israel because that the place they was learning to worship Jehovah the right way again.​—Neh. 8:​8, 9.

8. Why today we must get interest in the thing them that happen way back? (See the cover picture.)

⁸ Maybe somebody will say, ‘This one sounding very interesting, ‘but you think what happen to the Jews them way back really get meaning for us today?’ Yes, because what we doing looking just like we traveling on “the Way of Holiness” too. Whether we part of the anointed or the  “other sheep,” we must remain on “the Way of Holiness.” It will help us to continue worshipping Jehovah now-now and in the future. At that time, God Kingdom will do plenty good-good thing them on the earth. b (John 10:16) Since 1919, Plenty men, women, and children them na leave from Babylon the Great. Babylon the great that all the false religion them. And the people that leave from there na start traveling on this road. Maybe you among them. About 100 years ago, people start traveling on this road. But other people start fixing this road plenty years before people start using it to travel.

9. According to Isaiah 57:14, how they start fixing “the Way of Holiness”?

⁹ When the Jews was leaving from Babylon, Jehovah make sure to move anything that was going to give them hard time from on the road. (Read Isaiah 57:14.) What about the “Way of Holiness” today? Plenty years before 1919, Jehovah use some men them that was having deep respect for him to help other people to move from Babylon the Great. (Compare Isaiah 40:3.) They did important work that make it possible for people to leave false religion and worship Jehovah with his people. Wetin all was part of this “roadwork”? Let talk about some of the work they do to fix this road.

10-11. How printing and translating the Bible help plenty people to know what the Bible say? (Also see the picture.)

¹⁰ Printing. Before the year 1450, people use to copy the Bible with their hand. Copying the Bible with their hand use to stay long. Also, the Bible was hard to find and it was dear. But when they started using printing machine to print the Bible, it was easy for them to make plenty Bibles and give it to people.

¹¹ Translating. The main language the Bible was in, that Latin. And it was like that for long time. And that only people that know book use to understand this language. But when printing start getting popular, the men them who really respect God, work very hard to translate the Bible. They translate the Bible in more languages that the people use to understand. Now it was easy for people to compare what the Bible really teach with what the big-big God people use to say.

12-13. Give one example about how people who were studying the Bible show the lie-lie thing them the churches were teaching.

¹² Things that make Bible study easy. People who take their own self time to study the Bible learn plenty good-good thing them from it. But the big-big church people got vex bad way because the Bible student them start telling other people about what they learn from the Bible. For example, around 1835, some men them who get respect for God start making tracts. The tract them show the lie-lie thing them the churches was teaching.

¹³ About 1835 one man name Henry Grew who was having fear for God, write one tract that talk about what can happen to people when they die. Inside it, he use the Bible to prove that immortality that gift from God, not something that people can born with. And most of the churches use to teach this false idea. In 1837, when George Storrs was on the train going somewhere, he found  that tract. He read it and he was convince that he na find one important truth. So he decide to tell other people about the thing them he learn. In 1842 he gave different-different talk on this interesting title “An Inquiry​—Are the Wicked Immortal?” One young man name Charles Taze Russell was one of the people that learn from what George Storrs write.

14. How Brother Russell and his friend them benefit from the spiritual roadwork that other people do? (Also see the picture.)

¹⁴ How Brother Russell and his friend them benefit from the spiritual roadwork that other people do way back? When they were doing their studies, they use to check different-different Bible translations and other material them. All this thing them was already there before they start doing their work. They also benefit from the Bible research that Henry Grew, George Storrs, and other people do. Brother Russell and his friend them also help with the spiritual roadwork. They do it by producing plenty books and tracts that talk about what the Bible say.

15. What the important thing them that happen in 1919?

¹⁵ In 1919, God people was free from false religion. That year, the “faithful and discreet slave” start working hard so that people who really want learn about Jehovah can start traveling on the “Way of Holiness.” (Matt. 24:​45-47) We grateful for the work that other people did way back. Because of that, it na help plenty people today to start traveling on that road to learn more about Jehovah and his purpose. (Prov. 4:18) They were also able to obey what Jehovah say. Jehovah was not expecting his people to make all this changes one time. But small-small, Jehovah been helping his people. (See the box “ Jehovah Been Helping His People Small-Small.”) We will really be happy  when we able to do everything that will make God happy!​—Col. 1:10.

16. Since 1919, what kind na work they been doing on “the Way of Holiness”? (Isaiah 48:17; 60:17)

¹⁶ They need to fix every road from time to time so it can be in good condition. Since 1919, they been working on “the Way of Holiness” so that more people can move from Babylon the Great. The faithful and discreet slave that was appointed in 1919 start working. And in 1921, they print one Bible-study book that help people who just start learning the truth. They call that book, The Harp of God. They print almost six million of it in 36 languages and this book help plenty people to learn the truth. And not too long, we got one new publication for conducting Bible studies. They call it Enjoy Life Now and Forever! Throughout the last days, Jehovah been using his organization to give us direction from the Bible, so that we can continue traveling on “the Way of Holiness.”​—⁠Read Isaiah 48:17; 60:17.

17-18. Where place “the Way of Holiness” will carry us?

¹⁷ We can say that when someone start studying the Bible, they get the opportunity to start walking on “the Way of Holiness.” Some of them can travel short distance and move from on the highway. Other people can fight hard to continue traveling until they reach to the place they going. That place that where?

¹⁸ The people them that get the hope to go to heaven, “the Way of Holiness” will carry them to “the paradise of God” in heaven. (Rev. 2:7) And the people that get the hope to live on earth, “the Way of Holiness” will carry them to the end of the 1,000 years when they will be perfect. So if you traveling on this highway today, don’t look at the thing them you leave behind. And don’t move from on this highway until you reach to the new world! We wish you safe journey.