⁶ O sword of the Lord, how long will you have no rest? put yourself back into your cover; be at peace, be quiet.

³ And say to the land of Israel, These are the words of the Lord: See, I am against you, and I will take my sword out of its cover, cutting off from you the upright and the evil.

⁴ Because I am going to have the upright and the evil cut off from you, for this cause my sword will go out from its cover against all flesh from the south to the north:

⁵ And all flesh will see that I the Lord have taken my sword out of its cover: and it will never go back.

¹² Those who make waste have come on all the open hilltops in the waste land; for the sword of the Lord sends destruction from one end of the land to the other end of the land: no flesh has peace.

¹¹ Then Jesus said to Peter, Put back your sword: am I not to take the cup which my Father has given to me?

³⁰ Go back into your cover. In the place where you were made, in the land from which you were taken, I will be your judge.

¹⁷ Or if I send a sword against that land, and say, Sword, go through the land, cutting off from it man and beast:

²⁰ You are my fighting axe and my instrument of war: with you the nations will be broken; with you kingdoms will be broken;

²¹ With you the horse and the horseman will be broken; with you the war-carriage and he who goes in it will be broken;

²² With you man and woman will be broken; with you the old man and the boy will be broken; with you the young man and the virgin will be broken;

²³ With you the keeper of sheep with his flock will be broken, and with you the farmer and his oxen will be broken, and with you captains and rulers will be broken.

²⁷ And you are to say to them, This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: Take of this cup and be overcome, and let it come out again from your lips, and from your fall you will never be lifted up again, because of the sword which I will send among you.

³ And I will put over them four divisions, says the Lord: the sword causing death, dogs pulling the dead bodies about, and the birds of heaven, and the beasts of the earth to take their bodies for food and put an end to them.

⁴ How long will the land have grief, and the plants of all the land be dry? because of the sins of the people living in it, destruction has overtaken the beasts and the birds; because they said, God does not see our ways.

²¹ How long will I go on seeing the flag and hearing the sound of the war-horn?

¹⁵ Will the axe say high-sounding words against him who is using it, or the blade be full of pride against him who is cutting with it? As if a rod had the power of shaking him who is using it, or as if a stick might take up him who is not wood.

⁵ Ho! Assyrian, the rod of my wrath, the instrument of my punishment!

¹³ Up! Lord, come out against him, make him low, with your sword be my saviour from the evil-doer.

²⁷ Then the Lord gave orders to the angel, and he put back his sword into its cover.

²⁶ Then crying out to Joab, Abner said, Are fighting and destruction to go on for ever? do you not see that the end will only be bitter? how long will it be before you send the people back and make them give up attacking their countrymen?

⁴¹ If I make sharp my shining sword, and my hand is outstretched for judging, I will give punishment to those who are against me, and their right reward to my haters.

⁴² I will make my arrows red with blood, my sword will be feasting on flesh, with the blood of the dead and the prisoners, of the long-haired heads of my haters.