For affliction does not come from the dust, nor does trouble sprout from the ground,
I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the Lord, who does all these things.
See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled;
Is a trumpet blown in a city, and the people are not afraid? Does disaster come to a city, unless the Lord has done it?
They utter mere words; with empty oaths they make covenants; so judgment springs up like poisonous weeds in the furrows of the field.
Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come?
For we are brought to an end by your anger; by your wrath we are dismayed.
When he is quiet, who can condemn? When he hides his face, who can behold him, whether it be a nation or a man?—
and watch. If it goes up on the way to its own land, to Beth-shemesh, then it is he who has done us this great harm, but if not, then we shall know that it is not his hand that struck us; it happened to us by coincidence.”
had I not feared provocation by the enemy, lest their adversaries should misunderstand, lest they should say, “Our hand is triumphant, it was not the Lord who did all this.”’
Unless otherwise indicated, all content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Contact me: openbibleinfo (at) gmail.com.