Avshalom commanded his servants, saying, Mark you now, when Amnon's heart is merry with wine; and when I tell you, Smite Amnon, then kill him; don't be afraid; haven't I commanded you? be courageous, and be valiant.
Behold, they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame: it shall not be a coal to warm at, nor a fire to sit before.
Therefore as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as the dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust; because they have rejected the law of the LORD of Armies, and despised the word of the Holy One of Yisra'el.
For wickedness burns like a fire. It devours the briers and thorns; yes, it kindles in the thickets of the forest, and they roll upward in a column of smoke.
When they are heated, I will make their feast, and I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, says the LORD.
I will make drunk her princes and her wise men, her governors and her deputies, and her mighty men; and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake up, says the King, whose name is the LORD of Armies.
The best of them is like a brier. The most upright is worse than a thorn hedge. The day of your watchmen, even your visitation, has come; now is the time of their confusion.
*For, behold, the day comes, it burns as a furnace; and all the proud, and all who work wickedness, will be stubble; and the day that comes will burn them up,* says the LORD of Armies, *that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
Avigayil came to Naval; and behold, he held a feast in his house, like the feast of a king; and Naval's heart was merry within him, for he was very drunken: therefore she told him nothing, less or more, until the morning light.