For hardship does not spring from the soil, nor does trouble sprout from the ground.
They conceive trouble and give birth to evil; their womb fashions deceit.”
But if he remains silent, who can condemn him? If he hides his face, who can see him? Yet he is over individual and nation alike,
We are consumed by your anger and terrified by your indignation.
I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things.
Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both calamities and good things come?
They make many promises, take false oaths and make agreements; therefore lawsuits spring up like poisonous weeds in a plowed field.
Do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the grapes of your untended vines. The land is to have a year of rest.
When a trumpet sounds in a city, do not the people tremble? When disaster comes to a city, has not the Lord caused it?
but I dreaded the taunt of the enemy, lest the adversary misunderstand and say, ‘Our hand has triumphed; the Lord has not done all this.’ ”
See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.
but keep watching it. If it goes up to its own territory, toward Beth Shemesh, then the Lord has brought this great disaster on us. But if it does not, then we will know that it was not his hand that struck us but that it happened to us by chance.”