15. So that hearts may melt with fear and the fallen be many, I have stationed the sword for slaughter at all their gates. Look! It is forged to strike like lightning, it is grasped for slaughter.
16. Slash to the right, you sword, then to the left, wherever your blade is turned.
17. I too will strike my hands together, and my wrath will subside. I the Lord have spoken.”
18. The word of the Lord came to me:
19. “Son of man, mark out two roads for the sword of the king of Babylon to take, both starting from the same country. Make a signpost where the road branches off to the city.
20. Mark out one road for the sword to come against Rabbah of the Ammonites and another against Judah and fortified Jerusalem.
21. For the king of Babylon will stop at the fork in the road, at the junction of the two roads, to seek an omen: He will cast lots with arrows, he will consult his idols, he will examine the liver.
22. Into his right hand will come the lot for Jerusalem, where he is to set up battering rams, to give the command to slaughter, to sound the battle cry, to set battering rams against the gates, to build a ramp and to erect siege works.
23. It will seem like a false omen to those who have sworn allegiance to him, but he will remind them of their guilt and take them captive.
24. “Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: ‘Because you people have brought to mind your guilt by your open rebellion, revealing your sins in all that you do—because you have done this, you will be taken captive.
25. “ ‘You profane and wicked prince of Israel, whose day has come, whose time of punishment has reached its climax,
26. this is what the Sovereign Lord says: Take off the turban, remove the crown. It will not be as it was: The lowly will be exalted and the exalted will be brought low.