Do not be afraid of them, for I will be with you to protect you. I, the LORD, have spoken!"

(SEE 1:18)

I will make you like a solid bronze wall as far as they are concerned. They will fight against you, but they will not defeat you. I will be with you to protect you and keep you safe.

I will come to you and save you. I will destroy all the nations where I have scattered you, but I will not destroy you. I will not let you go unpunished; but when I punish you, I will be fair. I, the LORD, have spoken."

Make your plans! But they will never succeed. Talk all you want to! But it is all useless, because God is with us.

And yet, I am the God who forgives your sins, and I do this because of who I am. I will not hold your sins against you.

"Now tell your fellow exiles what I am saying. I am the one who sent them to live in far-off nations and scattered them in other countries. Yet, for the time being I will be present with them in the lands where they have gone.

"So tell them what I, the Sovereign LORD, am saying. I will gather them out of the countries where I scattered them, and will give the land of Israel back to them.

"A virgin will become pregnant and have a son, and he will be called Immanuel" (which means, "God is with us").

and teach them to obey everything I have commanded you. And I will be with you always, to the end of the age."

for I am with you. No one will be able to harm you, for many in this city are my people."

But the Lord stayed with me and gave me strength, so that I was able to proclaim the full message for all the Gentiles to hear; and I was rescued from being sentenced to death.

And the Lord will rescue me from all evil and take me safely into his heavenly Kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever! Amen.

The Lord be with your spirit. God's grace be with you all.

(The LORD has said that the whole earth will become a wasteland, but that he will not completely destroy it.)

I will send enemies to cut down my people's vineyards, but not to destroy them completely. I will tell them to strip away the branches, because those branches are not mine.

The LORD says, "Yet even in those days I will not completely destroy my people.

"My people, do not be afraid, people of Israel, do not be terrified. I will rescue you from that faraway land, from the land where you are prisoners. You will come back home and live in peace; you will be secure, and no one will make you afraid.

I will come to you and save you. I will destroy all the nations where I have scattered you, but I will not destroy you. I will not let you go unpunished; but when I punish you, I will be fair. I, the LORD, have spoken."

While I was prophesying, Pelatiah dropped dead. I threw myself face downward on the ground and shouted, "No, Sovereign LORD! Are you going to kill everyone left in Israel?"

I, the Sovereign LORD, am watching this sinful kingdom of Israel, and I will destroy it from the face of the earth. But I will not destroy all the descendants of Jacob.

"I will give the command and shake the people of Israel like grain in a sieve. I will shake them among the nations to remove all who are worthless.

And Isaiah exclaims about Israel: "Even if the people of Israel are as many as the grains of sand by the sea, yet only a few of them will be saved;

It is as Isaiah had said before, "If the Lord Almighty had not left us some descendants, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah."

It is the same way now: there is a small number left of those whom God has chosen because of his grace.

What then? The people of Israel did not find what they were looking for. It was only the small group that God chose who found it; the rest grew deaf to God's call.

Correct your people, LORD, but do not be too hard on us or punish us when you are angry; that would be the end of us.

LORD, don't be angry and rebuke me! Don't punish me in your anger!

Israel has not been punished by the LORD as severely as its enemies nor lost as many people.

The LORD punished his people by sending them into exile. He took them away with a cruel wind from the east.