I will be against you, so your enemies will defeat you. Those enemies hate you, and they will rule over you. You will run away even when no one is chasing you.
In the past, {you planted, and your plants grew well. But now} you will plant, and the ground will not help your plants grow. You will not have a home on the earth. You will wander from place to place.”
“Sometimes your people Israel will sin against you, and their enemies will defeat them. Then the people will come back to you and praise you. The people will pray to you in this temple.
The king of Aram defeated Jehoahaz’s army. The king of Aram destroyed most of the men in the army. He left only 50 horse soldiers, 10 chariots, [150] and 10,000 foot soldiers. Jehoahaz’s soldiers were like chaff [151] blown away by the wind at the time of threshing. [152]
But those evil people will be scared,\par like they have never been scared before!\par Those evil people are Israel’s enemies.\par God has rejected those evil people.\par So God’s people will defeat them,\par and God will scatter the bones\par of those evil people.\par
I wish someone (God) on Mount Zion\par would bring victory to Israel!\par At the time God brings his people back from exile. {\cf2\super [320]} \par Jacob will rejoice.\par Israel will be very happy.\par
One enemy will make threats and a thousand of your men will run away. Five enemies will make threats and all of you will run from them. The only thing that will be left of your army will be a flagpole on a hill.
But the people turned against the Lord.\par They made his Holy Spirit very sad.\par So the Lord became their enemy.\par The Lord fought against those people.\par
At this place, I will ruin the plans of the people of Judah and Jerusalem. The enemy will chase these people. And I will let the people of Judah be killed with swords in this place. And I will make their dead bodies food for the birds and wild animals.
So, this is what the Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, says: “I have decided to make terrible things happen to you. I will destroy the whole family of Judah.
Jerusalem’s enemies have won.\par Her enemies have been successful.\par This happened because the Lord\par punished her.\par He punished Jerusalem for her many sins.\par Her children have gone away.\par Their enemies captured them\par and took them away.\par
The Lord bent his bow like an enemy.\par He held his sword in his right hand.\par He killed all the good looking men of Judah.\par The Lord killed them\par as if he were the enemy.\par The Lord poured out his anger.\par He poured it out on the tents of Zion.\par
“I (God) will be against any person who eats blood. It does not matter if that person is a citizen of Israel or if that person is a foreigner living among you! I will separate that person from his people.
“The Lord will let your enemies defeat you. You will go to fight against your enemies one way, but you will run away from them seven different ways. The bad things that happen to you will make all the people on earth afraid.
The Lord was angry with the people of Israel. So the Lord let enemies attack the people of Israel and take their possessions. The Lord let their enemies that lived around them defeat them. The people of Israel could not protect themselves from their enemies.
The Lord was angry with the people of Israel. The Lord allowed Cushan Rishathaim, the king of Aram Naharaim [25] to defeat the people of Israel and to rule over them. The people of Israel were under that king’s rule for eight years.
The people of Midian were very powerful and were cruel to the people of Israel. So the people of Israel made many hiding places in the mountains. They hid their food in caves and places that were hard to find.
So the Philistines fought very hard and defeated the Israelites. Every Israelite soldier ran away to his tent. It was a terrible defeat for Israel. 30,000 Israelite soldiers were killed.