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 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

² Now the earth was formless and empty. Darkness was on the surface of the deep. God's Spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters.

³ God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.

⁴ God saw the light, and saw that it was good. God divided the light from the darkness.

⁵ God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." There was evening and there was morning, one day.

⁶ God said, "Let there be an expanse in the middle of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters."

⁷ God made the expanse, and divided the waters which were under the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so.

⁸ God called the expanse "sky." There was evening and there was morning, a second day.

⁹ God said, "Let the waters under the sky be gathered together to one place, and let the dry land appear;" and it was so.

¹⁰ God called the dry land "earth," and the gathering together of the waters he called "seas." God saw that it was good.

¹¹ God said, "Let the earth put forth grass, herbs yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit after their kind, with its seed in it, on the earth;" and it was so.

¹² The earth brought forth grass, herbs yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit, with its seed in it, after their kind; and God saw that it was good.

¹³ There was evening and there was morning, a third day.

¹⁴ God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of sky to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years;

¹⁵ and let them be for lights in the expanse of sky to give light on the earth;" and it was so.

¹⁶ God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He also made the stars.

¹⁷ God set them in the expanse of sky to give light to the earth,

¹⁸ and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. God saw that it was good.

¹⁹ There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

²⁰ God said, "Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of sky."

²¹ God created the large sea creatures, and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed, after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind. God saw that it was good.

²² God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth."

²³ There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.

²⁴ God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind, livestock, creeping things, and animals of the earth after their kind;" and it was so.

²⁵ God made the animals of the earth after their kind, and the livestock after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind. God saw that it was good.

²⁶ God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."

²⁷ God created man in his own image. In God's image he created him; male and female he created them.

²⁸ God blessed them. God said to them, "Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

²⁹ God said, "Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree, which bears fruit yielding seed. It will be your food.

³⁰ To every animal of the earth, and to every bird of the sky, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food;" and it was so.

³¹ God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. There was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.