Explore "The Greatest Story Ever Told" by Fulton Oursler on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
By now John the Baptist had been kept in prison at the palace in outlying Macherus for so many months that his friends no longer lived in daily fear of his being put to death. There was really only one person who desired his blood: the queen, Herodias. But she had never softened her scolding hatred. Day and night she seethed with unyielding hatred that poisoned all her thoughts, ruined her digestion, and even inflamed her wartish blemish, a disfiguring defect on the temple beyond her left eye, too deep-rooted to be taken off.
On the night that John said no to the king a state dinner was being planned in the palace. In celebration of his birthday, fat and pursy little Herod Antipas had invited all the bigwigs of Galilee- princes, tribunes, important official-to come and sup. At the appointed time they came, smiling their superior Roman smiles, flattering themselves as being sybarites and voluptuaries in a barbaric colony, making clear to one another with nudges and glances their contempt for this arrant provincial kingling, but making no secret, either, of their appreciation for his savory meats and well-aged wines,