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!
“And you shall be brought low and speak out of the ground, and your speech shall be low, out of the dust. And your voice shall be like a medium’s, out of the ground, and your speech whisper out of the dust.
“By the hand of your servants you have reproached יהוה, and said, ‘With my many chariots I have come up to the height of the mountains, to the limits of Leḇanon. And I cut down its tall cedars and its choice cypress trees. And I enter its farthest height, its thickest forest.
“Her hired ones too, in her midst, are like fattened calves, for they too shall turn, they shall flee away together. They shall not stand, for the day of their calamity has come upon them, the time of their punishment.
And the rulers said to them, “Let them live, but let them be woodcutters and drawers of water for all the congregation, as the rulers had promised them.”