They said to him, *Thus says Chizkiyahu, 'This day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and of rejection; for the children have come to the birth, and there is no strength to bring forth.
declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not [yet] done; saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure;
therefore I have declared it to you from of old; before it came to pass I shown it you; lest you should say, My idol has done them, and my engraved image, and my molten image, has commanded them.
For I will be to Efrayim like a lion, and like a young lion to the house of Yehudah. I myself will tear in pieces and go away. I will carry off, and there will be no one to deliver.
The days of visitation have come. The days of reckoning have come. Yisra'el will consider the prophet to be a fool, and the man who is inspired to be insane, because of the abundance of your sins, and because your hostility is great.
Therefore thus says the LORD: 'Your wife shall be a prostitute in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be divided by line; and you yourself shall die in a land that is unclean, and Yisra'el shall surely be led away captive out of his land.'*
The high places of Yitzchak will be desolate, the sanctuaries of Yisra'el will be laid waste; and I will rise against the house of Yarov`am with the sword.*
But my words and my decrees, which I commanded my servants the prophets, didn't they overtake your fathers? *Then they repented and said, 'Just as the LORD of Armies determined to do to us, according to our ways, and according to our practices, so he has dealt with us.'*
But I have told you these things, so that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you about them. I didn't tell you these things from the beginning, because I was with you.