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A Call to Trust the Lord

11 The Lord has given me a strong warning not to think like everyone else does. He said,

12 “Don’t call everything a conspiracy, like they do,
    and don’t live in dread of what frightens them.
13 Make the Lord of Heaven’s Armies holy in your life.
    He is the one you should fear.
He is the one who should make you tremble.
14     He will keep you safe.
But to Israel and Judah
    he will be a stone that makes people stumble,
    a rock that makes them fall.
And for the people of Jerusalem
    he will be a trap and a snare.
15 Many will stumble and fall,
    never to rise again.
    They will be snared and captured.”

16 Preserve the teaching of God;
    entrust his instructions to those who follow me.
17 I will wait for the Lord,
    who has turned away from the descendants of Jacob.
    I will put my hope in him.

18 I and the children the Lord has given me serve as signs and warnings to Israel from the Lord of Heaven’s Armies who dwells in his Temple on Mount Zion.

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11 The Lord has said in strongest terms: Do not under any circumstances go along with the plans of Judah to surrender to Syria and Israel. 12 Don’t let people call you a traitor for staying true to God. Don’t you panic as so many of your neighbors are doing when they think of Syria and Israel attacking you. 13 Don’t fear anything except the Lord of the armies of heaven! If you fear him, you need fear nothing else. 14-15 He will be your safety; but Israel and Judah have refused his care and thereby stumbled against the Rock of their salvation and lie fallen and crushed beneath it: God’s presence among them has endangered them! 16 Write down all these things I am going to do, says the Lord, and seal them up for the future. Entrust them to some godly man to pass on down to godly men of future generations.

17 I will wait for the Lord to help us, though he is hiding now. My only hope is in him. 18 I and the children God has given me have symbolic names that reveal the plans of the Lord of heaven’s armies for his people: Isaiah means “Jehovah will save (his people),” Shear-jashub means “A remnant shall return,” and Maher-shalal-hash-baz means “Your enemies will soon be destroyed.”

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