Against a godless nation I send him, and against the people of my wrath I command him, to take spoil and seize plunder, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.
therefore thus says the Lord GOD, Behold, I will stretch out my hand against the Philistines, and I will cut off the Cherethites and destroy the rest of the seacoast.
" 'Have you not heard that I determined it long ago? I planned from days of old what now I bring to pass, that you should make fortified cities crash into heaps of ruins,
Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction[1] all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.' "
"As for you, son of man, prophesy. Clap your hands and let the sword come down twice, yes, three times,[5] the sword for those to be slain. It is the sword for the great slaughter, which surrounds them,