They said to him, “Thus says Hezekiah: This day is a day of distress, of rebuke, and of disgrace; children have come to the birth, and there is no strength to bring them forth.
declaring the outcome from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, “My purpose shall stand, and I will fulfill my intention,”
I declared them to you from long ago, before they came to pass I announced them to you, so that you would not say, “My idol did them; my carved image and my cast image commanded them.”
For I will be like a lion to Ephraim and like a young lion to the house of Judah. I myself will tear and go away; I will carry off, and no one shall rescue.
As they go, I will cast my net over them; I will bring them down like birds of the air; I will discipline them according to the report made to their assembly.
The days of punishment have come; the days of recompense have come. Israel will cry out, “The prophet is a fool; the man of the spirit is mad!” Because of your great iniquity, your hostility is great.
Therefore thus says the Lord: Your wife shall become a prostitute in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be parceled out by line; you yourself shall die in an unclean land, and Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land.”
the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste, and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.”
But my words and my statutes, which I commanded my servants the prophets, did they not overtake your ancestors? So they repented and said, ‘The Lord of hosts has dealt with us according to our ways and deeds, just as he planned to do.’ ”
But I have said these things to you so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you about them. “I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you.