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It is sharpened for sore slaughter, it is furbished that it may glitter. Shall we then make mirth, [saying,] The sceptre of my son contemneth all wood?

Cry and howl, son of man; for it shall be against my people, it shall be against all the princes of Israel: they are given up to the sword along with my people: smite therefore upon the thigh.

For the trial [is made]; and what if even the contemning sceptre shall be no [more]? saith the Lord Jehovah.

And thou, son of man, prophesy, and smite thy hands together; for [the strokes of] the sword shall be doubled the third time: it is the sword of the slain, the sword that hath slain the great one, which encompasseth them privily.

In order that the heart may melt, and the stumbling-blocks be multiplied, I have set the threatening sword against all their gates: ah! it is made glittering, it is whetted for the slaughter.

Appoint a way for the coming of the sword to Rabbah of the children of Ammon, and to Judah at the fenced [city] of Jerusalem.

For the king of Babylon standeth at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination: he shaketh [his] arrows, he inquireth of the teraphim, he looketh in the liver.

In his right hand is the lot of Jerusalem to appoint battering-rams, to open the mouth for bloodshed, to lift up the voice with shouting, to appoint battering-rams against the gates, to cast mounds, to build siege-towers.

And this shall be a false divination in their sight, for them that have sworn oaths; but he will call to remembrance the iniquity, that they may be taken.

And thou, son of man, prophesy and say, Thus speaketh the Lord Jehovah concerning the children of Ammon, and concerning their reproach; and thou shalt say, A sword, a sword is drawn; for the slaughter is it furbished, that it may consume, that it may glitter:

whilst they see vanity for thee, whilst they divine a lie unto thee, to lay thee upon the necks of the wicked that are slain, whose day is come at the time of the iniquity of the end.

Thou shalt be for fuel to the fire; thy blood shall be in the midst of the land; thou shalt not be remembered: for I Jehovah have spoken.

And her prophets have daubed for them with untempered [mortar], seeing vanity and divining lies unto them, saying, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah! and Jehovah hath not spoken.

And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the fence, and stand in the breach before me for the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found none.

And their names were Oholah the elder, and Oholibah her sister; and they were mine, and they bore sons and daughters. As for their names: Samaria is Oholah, and Jerusalem Oholibah.

Neither left she her whoredoms [brought] from Egypt; for in her youth they had lain with her, and had handled the breasts of her virginity, and poured their fornication upon her.

And she increased her fornications; for she saw men portrayed upon the wall, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed with vermilion,

And thou didst look back to the lewdness of thy youth, in the handling of thy teats by the Egyptians, for the breasts of thy youth.

For thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will give thee over into the hand of them whom thou hatest, into the hand of them from whom thy soul is alienated.

Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Thou shalt drink of thy sister's cup deep and large; thou shalt be for a laughing-stock and a derision, [for] it containeth much.