'You only have I accepted from all the generations of the earth: therefore will I visit you in all your wickednesses.

The Lord says:

As the shepherd snatches two legs
or a piece of an ear
from the lion’s mouth,
so the Israelites who live in Samaria
will be rescued
with only the corner of a bed
or the cushion of a couch.

Moreover also, I, have withholden from you the abundant rain, when yet there were only three mouths to the harvest, Or I might rain upon one city, and, on another city, might not rain, - One portion, would be rained upon, and, the portion whereupon it should not rain, would be dried up;

For these are the words of the Lord God: The town which was able to send out a thousand, will have only a hundred; and that which sent out a hundred, will have only ten, in Israel.

It will be like a man who flees from a lion
only to have a bear confront him.
He goes home and rests his hand against the wall
only to have a snake bite him.

And have turned your festivals to mourning, And all your songs to lamentation, And caused sackcloth to come up on all loins, And on every head -- baldness, And made it as a mourning of an only one, And its latter end as a day of bitterness.

Lo, the eyes of the Lord Jehovah are on the sinful kingdom, And I have destroyed it from off the face of the ground, Only, I destroy not utterly the house of Jacob, An affirmation of Jehovah.