¹The word of Yahweh came to me, saying:

²Son of man, set your face toward Jerusalem, let your speech drip toward the sanctuaries, and prophesy against the ground of Israel.

³Say to the ground of Israel: Thus says Yahweh: Look, I am against you; I will draw my sword out of its sheath, and I will cut off from you the righteous and the wicked.

⁴Because I have cut off from you the righteous and the wicked, therefore my sword will go out from its sheath against all flesh, from the south to the north.

⁵And all flesh will know that I, Yahweh, have drawn my sword out of its sheath; it will not return again.

⁶And you, son of man, groan; with breaking of loins and with bitterness you will groan before their eyes.

⁷And it will be that they say to you: Over what are you groaning? Then you will say: Because of a report that it is coming; and every heart will melt, every hand will go slack, every breath will grow faint, and every knee will go like water. Look, it is coming, and it will happen — the utterance of the Adonai Yahweh.

⁸The word of Yahweh came to me, saying:

⁹Son of man, prophesy and say: Thus says the Lord: Say: A sword, a sword! It has been sharpened, and also polished.

¹⁰For the sake of slaughtering a slaughter it has been sharpened; so that it may have lightning it has been polished. Or shall we rejoice? The scepter of my son is rejecting every tree.

¹¹And one gave it to be polished, to grasp in the palm. It has been sharpened — a sword —, and it has been polished, to put it in the hand of the slayer.

¹²Cry out and wail, son of man, for it has come upon my people; it is upon all the princes of Israel. Those thrown to the sword have been with my people. Therefore slap your thigh.

¹³For it has been tested — and what if even the scepter that rejects will not be? — the utterance of the Adonai Yahweh.

¹⁴And you, son of man, prophesy and strike palm to palm; and let the sword be doubled, a third time — the sword of the slain. It is the sword of the great slain, the one that surrounds them.

¹⁵So that the heart may melt and the stumblings multiply, at all their gates I have set the slaughter of the sword. Ah! It is made for lightning, polished for slaughter.

¹⁶Be sharp, go right; set yourself, go left — wherever your face is set.

¹⁷And I too will strike my palm against my palm, and I will give rest to my rage. I, Yahweh, have spoken.

¹⁸The word of Yahweh was to me, saying:

¹⁹And you, son of man, set two roads for yourself for the sword of the king of Babylon to come; both of them shall go out from one land. And shape a signpost; shape it at the head of the road to a city.

²⁰You shall set a road for a sword to come to Rabbah of the sons of Ammon, and to Judah, into fortified Jerusalem.

²¹For the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the road, at the head of the two roads, to practise divination; he shook the arrows; he inquired of the teraphim; he looked at the liver.

²²In his right hand was the lot for Jerusalem: to set battering-rams, to open the mouth in a shattering cry, to lift high the voice in a war shout, to set battering-rams against the gates, to heap up a mound, to build a siege-wall.

²³It will be to them like false divination in their eyes — sworn oaths to them — but he is calling guilt to mind, so that they are seized.

²⁴Therefore thus says Adonai Yahweh: Because you have brought your guilt to mind, uncovering your transgressions so that your sins are seen in all your deeds — because you have been brought to mind, you will be seized by the hand.

²⁵And you, slain, wicked, the prince of Israel, whose day came in the time of the guilt of the after,

²⁶Thus says Adonai Yahweh: Remove the turban and lift off the crown; this will not be as this is: raise high the low, and bring low the high.

²⁷A ruin, a ruin, a ruin I will make it; this too will not be, until the one comes to whom the justice belongs, and I will give it to him.

²⁸And you, son of man, prophesy and say: Thus says Adonai Yahweh concerning the sons of Ammon, and concerning their reproach; and say: A sword, a sword, drawn for slaughter, polished to hold, for the sake of lightning.

²⁹In seeing to you the vain, in divining to you the lie, to set you to the neck of the slain wicked, whose day came in the time of the guilt of the after.

³⁰Put it back into its sheath. In the place where you were created, in the land of your origin, I will judge you.

³¹I will pour out my indignation on you; with the fire of my wrath I will blow on you; and I will put you into the hand of brutish men, craftsmen of destruction.

³²You will be food for the fire; your blood will be in the middle of the land; you will not be remembered, for I, Yahweh, have spoken.