Were it not that I feared the wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should misunderstand, and lest they should say, Our hand has triumphed, and the LORD has not done all this.
And there came a man of God, and spoke unto the king of Israel, and said, Thus says the LORD, Because the Syrians have said, The LORD is God of the hills, but he is not God of the valleys, therefore will I deliver all this great multitude into your hand, and you shall know that I am the LORD.
Why should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from your fierce wrath, and change from this evil against your people.
Thus shall you speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, Let not your God, in whom you trust, deceive you, saying, Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.
Because they have forsaken me, and have profaned this place, and have burned incense in it unto other gods, whom neither they nor their fathers have known, nor the kings of Judah, and have filled this place with the blood of innocents;
Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembers not her latter end; therefore she came down awesomely: she had no comforter. O LORD, behold my affliction: for the enemy has magnified himself.
Therefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable unto you, and break off your sins by practicing righteousness, and your iniquities by showing mercy to the poor; if it may be a lengthening of your tranquility.
But the soul that does anything presumptuously, whether he is born in the land, or is a stranger, the same reproaches the LORD; and that soul shall be cut off from among his people.
Lest the land from which you brought us out should say, Because the LORD was not able to bring them into the land which he promised them, and because he hated them, he has brought them out to slay them in the wilderness.
For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land shall hear of it, and shall surround us, and cut off our name from the earth: and what will you do for your great name?