Then Aviner called to Yo'av, and said, *Shall the sword devour forever? Don't you know that it will be bitterness in the latter end? How long shall it be then, before you bid the people return from following their brothers?*
Should an axe brag against him who chops with it? Should a saw exalt itself above him who saws with it? As if a rod should lift those who lift it up, or as if a staff should lift up someone who is not wood.
Destroyers are come on all the bare heights in the wilderness; for the sword of the LORD devours from the one end of the land even to the other end of the land: no flesh has shalom.
How long shall the land mourn, and the herbs of the whole country wither? for the wickedness of those who dwell therein, the animals are consumed, and the birds; because they said, He shall not see our latter end.
I will appoint over them four kinds, says the LORD: the sword to kill, and the dogs to tear, and the birds of the sky, and the animals of the earth, to devour and to destroy.
You shall tell them, Thus says the LORD of Armies, the God of Yisra'el: Drink you, and be drunken, and spew, and fall, and rise no more, because of the sword which I will send among you.
*Awake, sword, against my shepherd, and against the man who is close to me,* says the LORD of Armies. *Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered; and I will turn my hand against the little ones.
The three companies blew the trumpets, and broke the pitchers, and held the torches in their left hands, and the trumpets in their right hands with which to blow; and they cried, The sword of the LORD and of Gid`on.