Then Abner called out to Joab and said, “Must the sword devour forever? Don’t you realize how bitter it will be in the end? How long until you order the people to stop pursuing their kinsmen?”
Should the axe boast against the One who chops with it? Should the saw magnify itself against the One who wields it? It would be like a rod waving the One who lifts it, or like a staff hoisting up the One who is not wood!
On all the bare hills in the wilderness destroyers have come. For the sword of Adonai is devouring from the one end of the land to the other end of the land. No flesh has shalom.
How long will the land mourn and the grass of all the field wither? Because those living in it are evil, beasts and birds are swept away. For they said, “He cannot see our end.”
I have appointed over them four kinds” —it is a declaration of Adonai— “the sword to slay, the dogs to drag, the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth to devour and to destroy.
And you will say to them, thus says Adonai-Tzva’ot, the God of Israel: “Drink, be drunken, vomit, fall down and rise no more, because of the sword that I will send among you.”
Awake, O sword, against My shepherd, against the man who is My companion! It is a declaration of Adonai-Tzva’ot. Strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered! I will turn My hand against the little ones.
When the three columns blew the shofarot and broke the pitchers, they held the torches in their left hands and the shofarot in their right hands to blow, and they shouted, “A sword for Adonai and for Gideon!”