19. As for you, son of man, prophesy,and clap your hands!Let the sword strike twice, a third time.It is a sword of slaughter,A sword for slaughtering,whirling around them all,
20. That every heart may tremble;for many will be made to stumble.At all their gatesI have stationed the sword for slaughter,Made it flash lightning,drawn for slaughter.
21. Slash to the right!turn to the left,Wherever your edge is directed!
22. Then I, too, shall clap my hands,and spend my fury.I, the Lord, have spoken.
23. The word of the Lord came to me:
24. Son of man, make for yourself two roads over which the sword of the king of Babylon can come. Both roads shall start out from the same land. Then put a signpost at the head of each road
25. so the sword can come to Rabbah of the Ammonites or to Judah and its fortress, Jerusalem.
26. For the king of Babylon is standing at the fork of the two roads to read the omens: he shakes out the arrows, inquires of the teraphim, inspects the liver.
27. Into his right hand has fallen the lot marked “Jerusalem”: to order the slaughter, to raise the battle cry, to set the battering rams against the gates, to throw up a ramp, to build siege works.
28. In the eyes of those bound by oath this seems like a false omen; yet the lot taken in hand exposes the wickedness for which they, still bound by oath, will be taken in hand.
29. Therefore thus says the Lord God: Because your guilt has been exposed, your crimes laid bare, your sinfulness revealed in all your deeds—because you have been exposed, you shall be taken in hand.
30. And as for you, depraved and wicked prince of Israel, a day is coming to end your life of crime.
31. Thus says the Lord God: Off with the turban and away with the crown! Nothing shall be as it was! Exalt the lowly and bring the exalted low!
32. A ruin, a ruin, a ruin, I shall make it! Nothing will be the same until the one comes to whom I have given it for judgment.
33. As for you, son of man, prophesy: Thus says the Lord God to the Ammonites and their insults:O sword, sword drawn for slaughter,burnished to consume, to flash lightning!