2 Chronicles 20:9 (LSB)

Passage

‘Should evil come upon us, the sword, or judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we will stand before this house and before You (for Your name is in this house) and cry to You in our distress, and You will hear and save us.’

Nearby Context

2 Chronicles 20:7 Did You not, O our God, dispossess the inhabitants of this land before Your people Israel and give it to the seed of Abraham Your friend forever?

2 Chronicles 20:8 And they have lived in it, and have built You a sanctuary there for Your name, saying,

2 Chronicles 20:9 ‘Should evil come upon us, the sword, or judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we will stand before this house and before You (for Your name is in this house) and cry to You in our distress, and You will hear and save us.’

2 Chronicles 20:10 So now, behold, the sons of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir, whom You did not let Israel invade when they came out of the land of Egypt (they turned aside from them and did not destroy them),

2 Chronicles 20:11 and behold, they are rewarding us by coming to drive us out from Your possession which You have caused us to possess.

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "should", "evil", "come", "upon", "sword", "judgment", "pestilence", and "famine". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "should" and "evil", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 8's "And they have lived in it and..." into verse 10's "So now behold the sons of Ammon...", so "should" and "evil" belong inside that flow. In 2 Chronicles context, the local focus is covenant, worship, and faithfulness.

A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "should" and "evil" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.