Then God said to Abimelech in the dream, “Yes, I know that you did this with a clear conscience, and so I have kept you fromsinning against Me. That is why I did not let you touch her.
For I will drive out the nations before you and enlarge your borders, and no one will covet your land when you go up three times a year to appear before the LORD your God.
Now, my lord, as surely as the LORD lives and you yourself live, the LORD has held you back from coming to bloodshed and avenging yourself with your own hand. May your enemies and those who seek harm for my lord be like Nabal. ... Otherwise, as surely as the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, who has restrained me from harming you, if you had not come quickly to meet me, then surely no male belonging to Nabal would have been left alive by morning light.”
Therefore, behold, I will hedge up her path with thorns; I will enclose her with a wall, so she cannot find her way. She will pursue her lovers but not catch them; she will seek them but not find them. Then she will say, ‘I will return to my first husband, for then I was better off than now.’
No one in this house is greater than I am. He has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. So how could I do such a great evil and sin against God?”
“If someone sins and acts unfaithfully against the LORD by deceiving his neighbor in regard to a deposit or security entrusted to him or stolen, or if he extorts his neighbor
For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, but the one who now restrains it will continue until he is taken out of the way. ... For this reason God will send them a powerful delusion so that they believe the lie,