"Therefore thus will I do to you, Israel; Because I will do this to you, Prepare to meet your God, Israel.
"Prepare to meet thy God ..." Howard saw in this a summons for Israel, "to meet her God in the final judgment";[34] and although true in a typical, or ultimate, sense, something much more immediate was in store for Israel.  The people were to be carried away captive with "hooks," a prophecy which the Assyrians fulfilled in the customary habit of taking away the captives of the lands they ravaged with hooks in their lips, or noses, and fastened together in chains.  There was still time for Israel to repent and turn to the Lord in order to avert the impending judgment; but they never heeded it.  They simply overlooked the truth that God will not indefinitely warn and threaten; for the incorrigibly wicked, there remains the final and ultimate confrontation of God; and, for Israel, the time was growing short indeed.