Ezekiel 21

¹³“For there is a trial. What if even the rod that condemns will be no more?” says the Lord Yahweh.

¹⁴“You therefore, son of man, prophesy,

and strike your hands together.

Let the sword be doubled the third time,

the sword of the fatally wounded.

It is the sword of the great one who is fatally wounded,

which enters into their rooms.

¹⁵I have set the threatening sword against all their gates,

that their heart may melt,

and their stumblings be multiplied.

Ah! It is made as lightning.

It is pointed for slaughter.

¹⁶Gather yourselves together.

Go to the right.

Set yourselves in array.

Go to the left,

wherever your face is set.

¹⁷I will also strike my hands together,

and I will cause my wrath to rest.

I, Yahweh, have spoken it.”

¹⁸Yahweh’s word came to me again, saying, ¹⁹“Also, you son of man, appoint two ways, that the sword of the king of Babylon may come. They both will come out of one land, and mark out a place. Mark it out at the head of the way to the city. ²⁰You shall appoint a way for the sword to come to Rabbah of the children of Ammon, and to Judah in Jerusalem the fortified. ²¹For the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination. He shook the arrows back and forth. He consulted the teraphim. He looked in the liver. ²²In his right hand was the lot for Jerusalem, to set battering rams, to open the mouth in the slaughter, to lift up the voice with shouting, to set battering rams against the gates, to cast up mounds, and to build forts. ²³It will be to them as a false divination in their sight, who have sworn oaths to them; but he brings iniquity to memory, that they may be taken.

²⁴“Therefore the Lord Yahweh says: ‘Because you have caused your iniquity to be remembered, in that your transgressions are uncovered, so that in all your doings your sins appear; because you have come to memory, you will be taken with the hand.

²⁵“ ‘You, deadly wounded wicked one, the prince of Israel, whose day has come, in the time of the iniquity of the end, ²⁶the Lord Yahweh says: “Remove the turban, and take off the crown. This will not be as it was. Exalt that which is low, and humble that which is high. ²⁷I will overturn, overturn, overturn it. This also will be no more, until he comes whose right it is; and I will give it.” ’

²⁸“You, son of man, prophesy and say, ‘The Lord Yahweh says this concerning the children of Ammon, and concerning their reproach:

“A sword! A sword is drawn!

It is polished for the slaughter,

to cause it to devour,

that it may be as lightning;

²⁹while they see for you false visions,

while they divine lies to you,

to lay you on the necks of the wicked who are deadly wounded,

whose day has come in the time of the iniquity of the end.

³⁰Cause it to return into its sheath.

In the place where you were created,

in the land of your birth, I will judge you.

³¹I will pour out my indignation on you.

I will blow on you with the fire of my wrath.

I will deliver you into the hand of brutish men,

skillful to destroy.

³²You will be for fuel to the fire.

Your blood will be in the middle of the land.

You will be remembered no more;

for I, Yahweh, have spoken it.” ’ ”