¹ And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

² Son of man, set thy face toward Jerusalem, and let thy speech flow towards the holy places, and prophesy against the land of Israel:

³ And say to the land of Israel: Thus saith the Lord God: Behold I come against thee, and I will draw forth my sword out of its sheath, and will cut off in thee the just, and the wicked.

⁴ And forasmuch as I have cut off in thee the just, and the wicked, therefore shall my sword go forth out of its sheath against all flesh, from the south even to the north.

⁵ That all flesh may know that I the Lord have drawn my sword out of its sheath not to be turned back.

⁶ And thou, son of man, mourn with the breaking of thy loins, and with bitterness sigh before them.

⁷ And when they shall say to thee: Why mournest thou? thou shalt say: For that which I hear: because it cometh, and every heart shall melt, and all hands shall be made feeble, and every spirit shall faint, and water shall run down every knee: behold it cometh, and it shall be done, saith the Lord God.

⁸ And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

⁹ Son of man, prophesy, and say: Thus saith the Lord God: say: The sword, the sword is sharpened, and furbished.

¹⁰ It is sharpened to kill victims: it is furbished that it may glitter: thou removest the sceptre of my son, thou hast cut down every tree.

¹¹ And I have given it to be furbished, that it may be handled: this sword is sharpened, and it is furbished, that it may be in the hand of the slayer.

¹² Cry, and howl, 0 son of man, for this sword is upon my people, it is upon all the princes of Israel, that are fled: they are delivered up to the sword with my people, strike therefore upon thy thigh,

¹³ Because it is tried: and that when it shall overthrow the sceptre, and it shall not be, saith the Lord God.

¹⁴ Thou therefore, O son of man, prophesy, and strike thy hands together, and let the sword be doubled, and let the sword of the slain be tripled: this is the sword of a great slaughter, that maketh them stand amazed,

¹⁵ And languish in heart, and that multiplieth ruins. In all their gates I have set the dread of the sharp sword, the sword that is furbished to glitter, that is made ready for slaughter.

¹⁶ Be thou sharpened, go to the right hand, or to the left, which way soever thou hast a mind to set thy face.

¹⁷ And I will clap my hands together, and will satisfy my indignation: I the Lord have spoken.

¹⁸ And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

¹⁹ And thou son of man, set thee two ways, for the sword of the king of Babylon to come: both shall come forth out of one land: and with his hand he shall draw lots, he shall consult at the head of the way of the city.

²⁰ Thou shalt make a way that the sword may come to Rabbath of the children of Ammon, and to Juda unto Jerusalem the strong city.

²¹ For the king of Babylon stood in the highway, at the head of two ways, seeking divination, shuffling arrows: he inquired of the idols, and consulted entrails.

²² On his right hand was the divination for Jerusalem, to set battering rams, to open the mouth in slaughter, to lift up the voice in howling, to set engines against the gates, to cast up a mount, to build forts.

²³ And he shall be in their eyes as one consulting the oracle in vain, and imitating the leisure of sabbaths: but he will call to remembrance the iniquity that they may be taken.

²⁴ Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Because you have remembered your iniquity, and have discovered your prevarications, and your sins have appeared in all your devices: because, I say, you have remembered, you shall be taken with the hand.

²⁵ But thou profane wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come that hath been appointed in the time of iniquity:

²⁶ Thus saith the Lord God: Remove the diadem, take off the crown: is it not this that hath exalted the low one, and brought down him that was high?

²⁷ I will shew it to be iniquity, iniquity, iniquity: but this was not done till he came to whom judgment belongeth, and I will give it him.

²⁸ And thou son of man, prophesy, and say: Thus saith the Lord God concerning the children of Ammon, and concerning their reproach, and thou shalt say: sword, O sword, come out of the scabbard to kill, be furbished to destroy, and to glitter,

²⁹ Whilst they see vain things in thy regard, and they divine lies: to bring thee upon the necks of the wicked that are wounded, whose appointed day is come in the time of iniquity.

³⁰ Return into thy sheath. I will judge thee in the place wherein thou wast created, in the land of thy nativity.

³¹ And I will pour out upon thee my indignation: in the fire of my rage will I blow upon thee, and will give thee into the hands of men that are brutish and contrive thy destruction.

³² Thou shalt be fuel for the fire, thy blood shall be in the midst of the land, thou shalt be forgotten: for I the Lord have spoken it.

¹ The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz did see.

² Lift ye up a banner upon the high mountain, exalt the voice unto them, shake the hand, that they may go into the gates of the nobles.

³ I have commanded my sanctified ones, I have also called my mighty ones for mine anger, even them that rejoice in my highness.

⁴ The noise of a multitude in the mountains, like as of a great people; a tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations gathered together: the LORD of hosts mustereth the host of the battle.

⁵ They come from a far country, from the end of heaven, even the LORD, and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land.

⁶ Howl ye; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty.

⁷ Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man's heart shall melt:

⁸ And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth: they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames.

⁹ Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.

¹⁰ For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.

¹¹ And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.

¹² I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir.

¹³ Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger.

¹⁴ And it shall be as the chased roe, and as a sheep that no man taketh up: they shall every man turn to his own people, and flee every one into his own land.

¹⁵ Every one that is found shall be thrust through; and Every one that is joined unto them shall fall by the sword.

¹⁶ Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives ravished.

¹⁷ Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, which shall not regard silver; and as for gold, they shall not delight in it.

¹⁸ Their bows also shall dash the young men to pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye shall not spare children.

¹⁹ And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.

²⁰ It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there.

²¹ But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there.

²² And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces: and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged.