God is not a human being, and he will not lie. He is not a human, and he does not change his mind. What he says he will do, he does. What he promises, he makes come true.
Stay in this land, and I will be with you and bless you. I will give you and your descendants all these lands, and I will keep the oath I made to Abraham your father.
I am with you and will protect you everywhere you go and will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
Anyone from your family who dies in the city will be eaten by dogs, and those who die in the fields will be eaten by the birds. The Lord has spoken.’ ”
Then the officer who was close to the king answered Elisha, “Even if the Lord opened windows in the sky, that couldn’t happen.” Elisha said, “You will see it with your eyes, but you will not eat any of it.”
But he is wise and can bring them disaster. He does not change his warnings. He will rise up and fight against the evil people and against those who try to help evil people.
I am calling a man from the east to carry out my plan; he will come like a hawk from a country far away. I will make what I have said come true; I will do what I have planned.
The same thing is true of the words I speak. They will not return to me empty. They make the things happen that I want to happen, and they succeed in doing what I send them to do.
So the people in the land will cry loudly, and the sky will grow dark, because I have spoken and will not change my mind. I have made a decision, and I will not change it.”
I won’t punish you in my anger, and I won’t destroy Israel again. I am God and not a human; I am the Holy One, and I am among you. I will not come against you in anger.
It is not yet time for the message to come true, but that time is coming soon; the message will come true. It may seem like a long time, but be patient and wait for it, because it will surely come; it will not be delayed.
I, the Lord, have spoken, and I will certainly do these things to all these evil people who have come together against me. So they will all die here in this desert.”
These two things cannot change: God cannot lie when he makes a promise, and he cannot lie when he makes an oath. These things encourage us who came to God for safety. They give us strength to hold on to the hope we have been given.
Every good action and every perfect gift is from God. These good gifts come down from the Creator of the sun, moon, and stars, who does not change like their shifting shadows.