“Sir, why are you crying?” Hazael asked. Elisha answered, “I know the evil you will do to the Israelites: You will set their fortresses on fire, kill their best young men, smash their little children, and rip open their pregnant women.”
The Lord will strike Egypt with a plague. When he strikes them, he will also heal them. Then they will come back to the Lord. And he will respond to their prayers and heal them.
Your own wickedness will correct you, and your unfaithful ways will punish you. You should know and see how evil and bitter it is for you if you abandon the Lord your God and do not fear me,” declares the Almighty Lord of Armies.
The Lord declares, “If you come back, Israel, if you come back to me, if you take your disgusting idols out of my sight and you don’t wander away from me,
“Tell them, ‘As I live, declares the Almighty Lord, I don’t want wicked people to die. Rather, I want them to turn from their ways and live. Change the way you think and act! Turn from your wicked ways! Do you want to die, people of Israel?’
“Break new ground. Plant righteousness, and harvest the fruit that your loyalty will produce for me.” It’s time to seek the Lord! When he comes, he will rain righteousness on you.
The time for them to be punished will come. The time for them to pay for their sins will come. ⌞When this happens,⌟ Israel will know it. ⌞They think that⌟ prophets are fools and that spiritual people are crazy. They have sinned a lot, and they are very hostile.
This is what the Lord says: Because Ammon has committed three crimes, and now a fourth crime, I will not change my plans. The Ammonites enlarged their territory by ripping open pregnant women in Gilead.