13. For this sword has been tested and proved [on others], and what if the rejecting and despising rod or scepter of Judah shall be no more but completely swept away? says the Lord God.
14. Therefore, son of man, prophesy and smite your hands together and let the sword be doubled, yes, trebled in intensity–the sword for those to be overthrown and pierced through; it is the sword of great slaughter which encompasses them [so that none can escape, even by entering into their inner chambers].
15. I have set the threatening and glittering sword against all their gates, that their hearts may melt and their stumblings be multiplied. Ah! It is made [to flash] like lightning; it is pointed and sharpened for slaughter.
16. Turn [O sword] and cut right or cut left, whichever way your lust for blood and your edge direct you.
17. I will also clap My hands, and I will cause My wrath to rest. I the Lord have said it.
18. The word of the Lord came to me again, saying,
19. Also, son of man, mark out two ways by which the sword of the king of Babylon may come; both shall come forth from the same land. And make a signpost (a hand); make it at the head of the way to a city.
20. You shall point out a way for the [Babylonian] sword to come to Rabbah [the capital] of the sons of Ammon and to Judah with Jerusalem, the fortified and inaccessible.
21. For the king of Babylon stands at the parting of the way, at the fork of the two ways, to use divination. He shakes the arrows to and fro, he consults the teraphim (household gods), he looks at the liver.
22. In his right hand is the lot marked for Jerusalem: to set battering rams, to open the mouth calling for slaughter, to lift up the voice with a war cry, to set battering rams against the gates, to cast up siege mounds, and to build siege towers.
23. And it shall seem like a lying divination to them who have sworn oaths [of allegiance to Nebuchadnezzar]. [Will he now fight against their homeland?] But he will remind them of their guilt and iniquity [in violating those oaths], that they may be caught. [II Chron. 36:10, 13; Ezek. 17:15, 18-21.]
24. Therefore thus says the Lord God: Because you have made your guilt and iniquity to be remembered, in that your transgressions are uncovered, so that in all your doings your sins appear–because, I say, you have come to remembrance, you shall be taken with the [enemy's] hand.
25. And you, O dishonored and wicked one [Zedekiah], the prince of Israel, whose day will come at the time of your final reckoning and punishment,