Were it not that I feared the wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should behave themselves strangely, and lest they should say, Our hand is high, and Yahweh hath not done all this.
And there came a man of Elohim, and spake unto the king of Israel, and said, Thus saith Yahweh, Because the Syrians have said, Yahweh is Elohim of the hills, but he is not Elohim of the valleys, therefore will I deliver all this great multitude into thine hand, and ye shall know that I am Yahweh.
Wherefore 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 thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people.
Thus shall ye speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, Let not thy Elohim, in whom thou trustest, deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.
Because they have forsaken me, and have estranged this place, and have burned incense in it unto other elohim, 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 remembereth not her last end; therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter. O Yahweh, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.
Wherefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable unto thee, and break off thy sins by righteousness, and thine iniquities by shewing mercy to the poor; if it may be a lengthening of thy tranquillity.
But the soul that doeth ought presumptuously, whether he be born in the land, or a stranger, the same reproacheth Yahweh; and that soul shall be cut off from among his people.
Lest the land whence thou broughtest us out say, Because Yahweh was not able to bring them into the land which he promised them, and because he hated them, he hath 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 environ us round, and cut off our name from the earth: and what wilt thou do unto thy great name?