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Chapter 21
1 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:
2 Son of man, set your face toward Jerusalem, and let your speech flow towards the holy places, and prophesy against the land of Israel:
3 And say to the land of Israel: Thus said the Lord God: Behold I come against you, and I will draw forth my sword out of its sheath, and will cut off in you the just, and the wicked.
4 And forasmuch as I have cut off in you 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 you, son of man, mourn with the breaking of your loins, and with bitterness sigh before them.
7 And when they shall say to you: Why mourn you? you shall say: For that which I hear: because it comes, 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 comes, and it shall be done, said the Lord God.
8 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:
9 Son of man, prophesy, and say: Thus said 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: you remove the sceptre of my son, you have 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 your thigh,
13 Because it is tried: and that when it shall overthrow the sceptre, and it shall not be, said the Lord God.
14 You therefore, O son of man, prophesy, and strike your 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 makes them stand amazed,
15 And languish in heart, and that multiplies 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 sharpened, go to the right hand, or to the left, which way soever you have a mind to set your 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 you son of man, set you 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 You shall 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 said 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 you profane wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come that has been appointed in the time of iniquity:
26 Thus said the Lord God: Remove the diadem, take off the crown: is it not this that has 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 belongs, and I will give it him.
28 And you son of man, prophesy, and say: Thus said the Lord God concerning the children of Ammon, and concerning their reproach, and you shall 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 your regard, and they divine lies: to bring you upon the necks of the wicked that are wounded, whose appointed day is come in the time of iniquity.
30 Return into your sheath. I will judge you in the place wherein you were created, in the land of your nativity.
31 And I will pour out upon you my indignation: in the fire of my rage will I blow upon you, and will give you into the hands of men that are brutish and contrive your destruction.
32 You shall be fuel for the fire, your blood shall be in the midst of the land, you shall be forgotten: for I the Lord have spoken it.