2 Chronicles 6:28

³Then out of the smoke came locusts on the earth, and power was given to them, as the scorpions of the earth have power. ⁴They were told that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree, but only those people who don’t have God’s seal on their foreheads. ⁵They were given power, not to kill them, but to torment them for five months. Their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a person. ⁶In those days people will seek death, and will in no way find it. They will desire to die, and death will flee from them.

⁷The shapes of the locusts were like horses prepared for war. On their heads were something like golden crowns, and their faces were like people’s faces. ⁸They had hair like women’s hair, and their teeth were like those of lions. ⁹They had breastplates like breastplates of iron. The sound of their wings was like the sound of many chariots and horses rushing to war. ¹⁰They have tails like those of scorpions, with stingers. In their tails they have power to harm men for five months. ¹¹They have over them as king the angel of the abyss. His name in Hebrew is “Abaddon”,^[+] but in Greek, he has the name “Apollyon”.

¹In the days when the judges judged, there was a famine in the land. A certain man of Bethlehem Judah went to live in the country of Moab with his wife and his two sons.

^13[+] Is any among you suffering? Let him pray. Is any cheerful? Let him sing praises.

²⁵I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the great locust, the grasshopper, and the caterpillar, my great army, which I sent among you.

¹Now Elisha had spoken to the woman whose son he had restored to life, saying, “Arise, and go, you and your household, and stay for a while wherever you can; for the LORD has called for a famine. It will also come on the land for seven years.”

²⁵I will bring a sword upon you that will execute the vengeance of the covenant. You will be gathered together within your cities, and I will send the pestilence among you. You will be delivered into the hand of the enemy. ²⁶When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread again by weight. You shall eat, and not be satisfied.

³⁷“If there is famine in the land, if there is pestilence, if there is blight, mildew, locust or caterpillar; if their enemy besieges them in the land of their cities, whatever plague, whatever sickness there is, ³⁸whatever prayer and supplication is made by any man, or by all your people Israel, who shall each know the plague of his own heart, and spread out his hands toward this house, ³⁹then hear in heaven, your dwelling place, and forgive, and act, and give to every man according to all his ways, whose heart you know (for you, even you only, know the hearts of all the children of men); ⁴⁰that they may fear you all the days that they live in the land which you gave to our fathers.

²In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, because they had trespassed against the LORD, ³with twelve hundred chariots and sixty thousand horsemen. The people were without number who came with him out of Egypt: the Lubim, the Sukkiim, and the Ethiopians. ⁴He took the fortified cities which belonged to Judah, and came to Jerusalem. ⁵Now Shemaiah the prophet came to Rehoboam and to the princes of Judah, who were gathered together to Jerusalem because of Shishak, and said to them, “The LORD says, ‘You have forsaken me, therefore I have also left you in the hand of Shishak.’”

¹After these things and this faithfulness, Sennacherib king of Assyria came, entered into Judah, encamped against the fortified cities, and intended to win them for himself.

²¹The LORD will make the pestilence cling to you, until he has consumed you from off the land where you go in to possess it. ²²The LORD will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with fiery heat, with the sword, with blight, and with mildew. They will pursue you until you perish. ²³Your sky that is over your head will be bronze, and the earth that is under you will be iron. ²⁴The LORD will make the rain of your land powder and dust. It will come down on you from the sky, until you are destroyed. ²⁵The LORD will cause you to be struck before your enemies. You will go out one way against them, and will flee seven ways before them. You will be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth. ²⁶Your dead bodies will be food to all birds of the sky, and to the animals of the earth; and there will be no one to frighten them away. ²⁷The LORD will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with the tumors, with the scurvy, and with the itch, of which you can not be healed. ²⁸The LORD will strike you with madness, with blindness, and with astonishment of heart. ²⁹You will grope at noonday, as the blind gropes in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways. You will only be oppressed and robbed always, and there will be no one to save you. ³⁰You will betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her. You will build a house, and you won’t dwell in it. You will plant a vineyard, and not use its fruit. ³¹Your ox will be slain before your eyes, and you will not eat any of it. Your donkey will be violently taken away from before your face, and will not be restored to you. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and you will have no one to save you. ³²Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people. Your eyes will look and fail with longing for them all day long. There will be no power in your hand. ³³A nation which you don’t know will eat the fruit of your ground and all of your work. You will only be oppressed and crushed always, ³⁴so that the sights that you see with your eyes will drive you mad. ³⁵The LORD will strike you in the knees and in the legs with a sore boil, of which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head. ³⁶The LORD will bring you, and your king whom you will set over yourselves, to a nation that you have not known, you nor your fathers. There you will serve other gods of wood and stone. ³⁷You will become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where the LORD will lead you away. ³⁸You will carry much seed out into the field, and will gather little in, for the locust will consume it. ³⁹You will plant vineyards and dress them, but you will neither drink of the wine, nor harvest, because worms will eat them. ⁴⁰You will have olive trees throughout all your borders, but you won’t anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives will drop off. ⁴¹You will father sons and daughters, but they will not be yours, for they will go into captivity. ⁴²Locusts will consume all of your trees and the fruit of your ground. ⁴³The foreigner who is among you will mount up above you higher and higher, and you will come down lower and lower. ⁴⁴He will lend to you, and you won’t lend to him. He will be the head, and you will be the tail.

⁴⁵All these curses will come on you, and will pursue you and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you didn’t listen to the LORD your God’s voice, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded you. ⁴⁶They will be for a sign and for a wonder to you and to your offspring forever. ⁴⁷Because you didn’t serve the LORD your God with joyfulness and with gladness of heart, by reason of the abundance of all things; ⁴⁸therefore you will serve your enemies whom the LORD sends against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in lack of all things. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you. ⁴⁹The LORD will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, as the eagle flies: a nation whose language you will not understand, ⁵⁰a nation of fierce facial expressions, that doesn’t respect the elderly, nor show favor to the young. ⁵¹They will eat the fruit of your livestock and the fruit of your ground, until you are destroyed. They also won’t leave you grain, new wine, oil, the increase of your livestock, or the young of your flock, until they have caused you to perish. ⁵²They will besiege you in all your gates until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout all your land. They will besiege you in all your gates throughout all your land which the LORD your God has given you. ⁵³You will eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters, whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies will distress you. ⁵⁴The man who is tender among you, and very delicate, his eye will be evil toward his brother, toward the wife whom he loves, and toward the remnant of his children whom he has remaining, ⁵⁵so that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he will eat, because he has nothing left to him, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy will distress you in all your gates. ⁵⁶The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye will be evil toward the husband that she loves, toward her son, toward her daughter, ⁵⁷toward her young one who comes out from between her feet, and toward her children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of all things in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy will distress you in your gates. ⁵⁸If you will not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and fearful name, THE LORD^[+] your God, ⁵⁹then the LORD will make your plagues and the plagues of your offspring fearful, even great plagues, and of long duration, and severe sicknesses, and of long duration. ⁶⁰He will bring on you again all the diseases of Egypt, which you were afraid of; and they will cling to you. ⁶¹Also every sickness and every plague which is not written in the book of this law, the LORD will bring them on you until you are destroyed.