My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you, That you may be no priest to me. Because you have your God's law, I will also forget your children.
"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge ..." Educators and public leaders like to quote this verse, but all too frequently they are unaware of what is meant by knowledge in this passage.  It is not scientific, secular, or technical knowledge that is meant, but religious knowledge, the knowledge of God through his revealed will, the Bible; and even more than this is meant; it means conformity to the will of God.  H. G. Wells said that, "Civilization is a race between education and catastrophe,"[17] but only a fool today believes that secular education alone can stave off catastrophe.  Will Durant found the great hope of humanity (as he viewed it) envisioned in a society where, "Every child would be schooled until his twentieth year, and should find free access to the universities, libraries, and museums that harbor and offer the intellectual and artistic treasures of the race!"[18]  It is the knowledge and worship of God alone that can lead either men or nations into the good life, In the light of all that we have learned in this present century, "How inadequate now seems the proud motto of Francis Bacon, `Knowledge is power'"?[19]  "Catastrophe overtakes a civilization not because it lacks intelligence, but because it lacks integrity."[20]