8. The Lord’s word came to me:
9. Human one, prophesy! Say, The Lord proclaims! Say:A sword! A sharp and polished sword!
10. For utter slaughter it is sharpened,polished to flash like lightning.Let’s not rejoice, because no one will escape the purge.
11. He appoints it for polishing, to seize in the hand.The sword is sharpened, it is polished;it is ready for the destroyer’s hand.
12. Human one, cry aloud, and wail,for it comes against my people,against all of Israel’s princes,handed over to the sword along with my people.Therefore, strike your thigh.
13. He’s testing.When even the rod rejects,will it not certainly happen?This is what the Lord God says.
14. And you, human one, prophesy!Strike hand to hand.Let the sword strike twice, three times!It’s a deadly sword,a great deadly sword.It whirls around them
15. to make hearts shudder,to make many stumble and fall.I’ve set the slaughtering swordagainst all their gates.Oh! It’s crafted to flash like lightning,polished for slaughter!
16. Stab again and again! Plunge right,plunge left, wherever your edge goes.
17. It is I who strike hand to hand!I’ll satisfy my wrath! I, the Lord, have spoken.
18. The Lord’s word came to me:
19. You, human one, mark two roads for the coming of the sword of the king of Babylon. They should diverge from a single country. Where the road to the city begins, set up a sign,
20. and point out the way for the sword to come: "To Rabbah of the Ammonites" or "To Judah in its stronghold Jerusalem."
21. The king of Babylon stands at the fork in the road where the two roads begin and performs his divinations. He shakes the arrows, consults the divine images, and inspects the liver.