A Sword for Slaughter

¹⁸ And the word of Yahweh came to me saying, ¹⁹ “Now as for you, son of man, ^[a](A)make two ways for the sword of the king of Babylon to come; both of them will go out of one land. And ^[b]make a signpost; ^[c]make it at the head of the way to the city. ²⁰ You shall ^[d]mark a way for the sword to come to ^(B)Rabbah of the sons of Ammon and to Judah into ^(C)fortified Jerusalem. ²¹ For the king of Babylon stands at the ^[e]parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use ^(D)divination; he ^(E)shakes the arrows; he asks the ^[f](F)household idols; he looks at the liver. ²² Into his right hand came the divination, ‘Jerusalem,’ to ^(G)set battering rams, to open the mouth ^[g]for killing, to lift up the voice with a shout of war, to set battering rams against the gates, to cast up ramps, to build a siege wall. ²³ And it will be to them like a worthless divination in their eyes; ^(H)they have sworn solemn oaths. But he ^(I)brings iniquity to remembrance, that they may be seized.

²⁴ “Therefore, thus says Lord Yahweh, ‘Because you have made your iniquity to be remembered, in that your transgressions are uncovered, so that in all your deeds your sins appear—because you have come to remembrance, you will be seized with the hand.