“Simeon and Levi are brothers— their swords are weapons of violence.

Then you replied, “We have sinned against the Lord. We will go up and fight, as the Lord our God commanded us.” So every one of you put on his weapons, thinking it easy to go up into the hill country.

Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots.

Israel Without Weapons

Saul and his son Jonathan and the men with them were staying in Gibeah in Benjamin, while the Philistines camped at Mikmash.

David took the Philistine’s head and brought it to Jerusalem; he put the Philistine’s weapons in his own tent.

Then Jonathan gave his weapons to the boy and said, “Go, carry them back to town.”

“How the mighty have fallen! The weapons of war have perished!”

Then Abner said to him, “Turn aside to the right or to the left; take on one of the young men and strip him of his weapons.” But Asahel would not stop chasing him.

Year after year, everyone who came brought a gift—articles of silver and gold, robes, weapons and spices, and horses and mules.

“You have your master’s sons with you and you have chariots and horses, a fortified city and weapons. Now as soon as this letter reaches you,

Year after year, everyone who came brought a gift—articles of silver and gold, and robes, weapons and spices, and horses and mules.

Then he worked hard repairing all the broken sections of the wall and building towers on it. He built another wall outside that one and reinforced the terraces of the City of David. He also made large numbers of weapons and shields.

He has prepared his deadly weapons; he makes ready his flaming arrows.

There he broke the flashing arrows, the shields and the swords, the weapons of war.

Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good.

They come from faraway lands, from the ends of the heavens— the Lord and the weapons of his wrath— to destroy the whole country.

The Lord stripped away the defenses of Judah, and you looked in that day to the weapons in the Palace of the Forest.

‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I am about to turn against you the weapons of war that are in your hands, which you are using to fight the king of Babylon and the Babylonians who are outside the wall besieging you. And I will gather them inside this city.

I will send destroyers against you, each man with his weapons, and they will cut up your fine cedar beams and throw them into the fire.

The Lord has opened his arsenal and brought out the weapons of his wrath, for the Sovereign Lord Almighty has work to do in the land of the Babylonians.

They will come against you with weapons, chariots and wagons and with a throng of people; they will take up positions against you on every side with large and small shields and with helmets. I will turn you over to them for punishment, and they will punish you according to their standards.

He will direct the blows of his battering rams against your walls and demolish your towers with his weapons.

But they do not lie with the fallen warriors of old, who went down to the realm of the dead with their weapons of war—their swords placed under their heads and their shields resting on their bones—though these warriors also had terrorized the land of the living.

“‘Then those who live in the towns of Israel will go out and use the weapons for fuel and burn them up—the small and large shields, the bows and arrows, the war clubs and spears. For seven years they will use them for fuel.

They will not need to gather wood from the fields or cut it from the forests, because they will use the weapons for fuel. And they will plunder those who plundered them and loot those who looted them, declares the Sovereign Lord.