Would the axe boast itself over him who chops with it, or the saw exalt itself over him who saws with it? As a rod waving those who lift it up! As a staff lifting up that which is not wood!
“Have you not heard long ago how I made it, from days of old, that I formed it? Now I have brought it about, that you should be for crushing walled cities into heaps of ruins.
“Thus said יהוה to His anointed, to Koresh, whose right hand I have grasped, to subdue nations before him and ungird the loins of sovereigns, to open before him the double doors, so that gates are not shut:
“Be shattered, O you peoples, and be broken in pieces! Give ear, all you from the far places of the earth. Gird yourselves, but be broken in pieces; gird yourselves, but be broken in pieces.
‘And I shall pour out My displeasure on you, blow against you with the fire of My wrath, and shall give you into the hands of beastly men, skilled to destroy.
“Arise and thresh, O daughter of Tsiyon, for I make your horn iron and your hooves bronze. And you shall beat many peoples into pieces, and I shall seclude their gain to יהוה, and their wealth to the Master of all the earth.”