and prophetic condemnations of the asherim, sun-worship and worship on the high places, along with practices pertaining to the dead and other aspects of the old religion. Features of Baal, El, and Asherah were absorbed into Yahweh, El (or el) () became a generic term meaning "god" as opposed to the name of a specific god, and epithets such as El Shaddai came to be applied to Yahweh alone. In this atmosphere a struggle emerged between those who believed that Yahweh alone should be worshipped, and those who worshipped him within a larger group of gods; the Yahweh-alone party, the party of the prophets and Deuteronomists, ultimately triumphed, and their victory lies behind the biblical narrative of an Israel vacillating between periods of "following other gods" and periods of fidelity to Yahweh. Neo-Babylonian and Persian Periods (586–332 BCE) In 587/6 BCE Jerusalem fell to the Neo-Babylonians, the Temple was destroyed, and the leadership of the community were deported. The next 50 years, the Babylonian exile, were of pivotal importance to the history of Israelite religion. As the traditional sacrifices to Yahweh (see below) could not be performed outside Israel, other practices including sabbath observance and circumcision gained new significance. In the writing of second Isaiah, Yahweh was no longer seen as exclusive to Israel but as extending his promise to all who would keep the sabbath and observe his covenant. In 539 BCE Babylon in turn fell to the Persian conqueror Cyrus the Great, the exiles were given permission to return (although only a minority did so), and by about 500 BCE the Temple was rebuilt. Towards the end of the Second Temple period, speaking the name of Yahweh in public became regarded as taboo. When reading from the scriptures, Jews began to substitute the divine name with the word adonai (אֲדֹנָי‬), meaning "Lord". The High Priest of Israel was permitted to speak the name once in the Temple during the Day of Atonement, but at no other time and in no other place. During the Hellenistic period, the scriptures were translated into Greek by the Jews of the Egyptian diaspora. Greek translations of the Hebrew scriptures render both the tetragrammaton and adonai as kyrios (κύριος), meaning "the Lord". After the Temple was destroyed in 70 CE the original pronunciation of the tetragrammaton was forgotten. The period of Persian rule saw the development of expectation in a future human king