Your beginning will seem so small, since your future will flourish.

Look, this town over here is close enough to escape to, and it’s just a little one. Let me go there. It’s just a little place, isn’t it? Then I’ll survive.”

For a short time your special nation possessed a land, but then our adversaries knocked down your holy sanctuary.

Even though the invading Syrian army was relatively weak, the Lord handed over to them Judah’s very large army, for the people of Judah had abandoned the Lord God of their ancestors. The Syrians gave Joash what he deserved.