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 "Now these are the ordinances which you shall set before them.

² "If you buy a Hebrew servant, he shall serve six years and in the seventh he shall go out free without paying anything.

³ If he comes in by himself, he shall go out by himself. If he is married, then his wife shall go out with him.

⁴ If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself.

⁵ But if the servant shall plainly say, 'I love my master, my wife, and my children. I will not go out free;'

⁶ then his master shall bring him to God, and shall bring him to the door or to the doorpost, and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall serve him for ever.

⁷ "If a man sells his daughter to be a female servant, she shall not go out as the male servants do.

⁸ If she doesn't please her master, who has married her to himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has dealt deceitfully with her.

⁹ If he marries her to his son, he shall deal with her as a daughter.

¹⁰ If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, and her marital rights.

¹¹ If he doesn't do these three things for her, she may go free without paying any money.

¹² "One who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death,

¹³ but not if it is unintentional, but God allows it to happen: then I will appoint you a place where he shall flee.

¹⁴ If a man schemes and comes presumptuously on his neighbor to kill him, you shall take him from my altar, that he may die.

¹⁵ "Anyone who attacks his father or his mother shall be surely put to death.

¹⁶ "Anyone who kidnaps someone and sells him, or if he is found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.

¹⁷ "Anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.

¹⁸ "If men quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone, or with his fist, and he doesn't die, but is confined to bed;

¹⁹ if he rises again and walks around with his staff, then he who struck him shall be cleared: only he shall pay for the loss of his time, and shall provide for his healing until he is thoroughly healed.

²⁰ "If a man strikes his servant or his maid with a rod, and he dies under his hand, he shall surely be punished.

²¹ Notwithstanding, if he gets up after a day or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his property.

²² "If men fight and hurt a pregnant woman so that she gives birth prematurely, and yet no harm follows, he shall be surely fined as much as the woman's husband demands and the judges allow.

²³ But if any harm follows, then you must take life for life,

²⁴ eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,

²⁵ burning for burning, wound for wound, and bruise for bruise.

²⁶ "If a man strikes his servant's eye, or his maid's eye, and destroys it, he shall let him go free for his eye's sake.

²⁷ If he strikes out his male servant's tooth, or his female servant's tooth, he shall let him go free for his tooth's sake.

²⁸ "If a bull gores a man or a woman to death, the bull shall surely be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the bull shall not be held responsible.

²⁹ But if the bull had a habit of goring in the past, and it has been testified to its owner, and he has not kept it in, but it has killed a man or a woman, the bull shall be stoned, and its owner shall also be put to death.

³⁰ If a ransom is laid on him, then he shall give for the redemption of his life whatever is laid on him.

³¹ Whether it has gored a son or has gored a daughter, according to this judgment it shall be done to him.

³² If the bull gores a male servant or a female servant, thirty shekels of silver shall be given to their master, and the ox shall be stoned.

³³ "If a man opens a pit, or if a man digs a pit and doesn't cover it, and a bull or a donkey falls into it,

³⁴ the owner of the pit shall make it good. He shall give money to its owner, and the dead animal shall be his.

³⁵ "If one man's bull injures another's, so that it dies, then they shall sell the live bull, and divide its price; and they shall also divide the dead animal.

³⁶ Or if it is known that the bull was in the habit of goring in the past, and its owner has not kept it in, he shall surely pay bull for bull, and the dead animal shall be his own.