Jeremiah 46:4

“Make the arrows sharp! Hold the shields firmly! Yahweh has stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes, because his purpose is against Babylon, to destroy it; for it is the vengeance of Yahweh, the vengeance of his temple.

Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, who will not value silver, and as for gold, they will not delight in it.

Set yourselves in array against Babylon all around, all you who bend the bow; shoot at her. Spare no arrows; for she has sinned against Yahweh.

Therefore hear the counsel of Yahweh, that he has taken against Babylon; and his purposes, that he has purposed against the land of the Chaldeans: Surely they will drag them away, even the little ones of the flock. Surely he will make their habitation desolate over them.

Prepare against her the nations, the kings of the Medes, its governors, and all its deputies, and all the land of their dominion!

Tell the forest of the South, ‘Hear Yahweh’s word: The Lord Yahweh says, “Behold, I will kindle a fire in you, and it will devour every green tree in you, and every dry tree. The burning flame will not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north will be burned by it.

and all the kings of Zimri, all the kings of Elam, and all the kings of the Medes;

Go up, you horses! Rage, you chariots! Let the mighty men go out: Cush and Put, who handle the shield; and the Ludim, who handle and bend the bow.

For a nation comes up out of the north against her, which will make her land desolate, and no one will dwell in it. They have fled. They are gone, both man and animal.

For, behold, I will stir up and cause to come up against Babylon a company of great nations from the north country; and they will set themselves in array against her. She will be taken from there. Their arrows will be as of an expert mighty man. None of them will return in vain.

Shout against her all around. She has submitted herself. Her bulwarks have fallen. Her walls have been thrown down, for it is the vengeance of Yahweh. Take vengeance on her. As she has done, do to her.

“Go up against the land of Merathaim, even against it, and against the inhabitants of Pekod. Kill and utterly destroy after them,” says Yahweh, “and do according to all that I have commanded you.

Against him who bends, let the archer bend his bow, also against him who lifts himself up in his coat of mail. Don’t spare her young men! Utterly destroy all her army!

“For there is a trial. What if even the rod that condemns will be no more?” says the Lord Yahweh.

I have set the threatening sword against all their gates, that their heart may melt, and their stumblings be multiplied. Ah! It is made as lightning. It is pointed for slaughter.

You shall appoint a way for the sword to come to Rabbah of the children of Ammon, and to Judah in Jerusalem the fortified.

In that night Belshazzar the Chaldean King was slain.

You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you aren’t troubled, for all this must happen, but the end is not yet.

And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God;

It shall have a hole for the head in the middle of it. It shall have a binding of woven work around its hole, as it were the hole of a coat of mail, that it not be torn.

“Speak to the children of Israel, and take rods from them, one for each fathers’ house, of all their princes according to their fathers’ houses, twelve rods. Write each man’s name on his rod.

Outside the sword will bereave, and in the rooms, terror on both young man and virgin, the nursing infant with the gray-haired man.

Among all these soldiers there were seven hundred chosen men who were left-handed. Every one of them could sling a stone at a hair and not miss.

He had a helmet of bronze on his head, and he wore a coat of mail; and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of bronze.

Saul dressed David with his clothing. He put a helmet of bronze on his head, and he clad him with a coat of mail.

David put his hand in his bag, took a stone, and slung it, and struck the Philistine in his forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell on his face to the earth.

I will be his father, and he will be my son. If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men;

Yahweh raised up an adversary to Solomon: Hadad the Edomite. He was one of the king’s offspring in Edom.

God raised up an adversary to him, Rezon the son of Eliada, who had fled from his lord Hadadezer king of Zobah.

So the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tilgath Pilneser king of Assyria, and he carried them away, even the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, and brought them to Halah, Habor, Hara, and to the river of Gozan, to this day.

Uzziah prepared for them, even for all the army, shields, spears, helmets, coats of mail, bows, and stones for slinging.

Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that Yahweh’s word by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, Yahweh stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying,

Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that Yahweh’s word by Jeremiah’s mouth might be accomplished, Yahweh stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying,

From that time forth, half of my servants did the work, and half of them held the spears, the shields, the bows, and the coats of mail; and the rulers were behind all the house of Judah.

So neither I, nor my brothers, nor my servants, nor the men of the guard who followed me, none of us took off our clothes. Everyone took his weapon to the water.

in the third year of his reign, he made a feast for all his princes and his servants; the power of Persia and Media, the nobles and princes of the provinces, being before him.

The couriers went out in haste by the king’s commandment, and the decree was given out in the citadel of Susa. The king and Haman sat down to drink; but the city of Susa was perplexed.

Clubs are counted as stubble. He laughs at the rushing of the javelin.

My eyes will be on the faithful of the land, that they may dwell with me. He who walks in a perfect way, he will serve me.

Happy shall he be, who takes and dashes your little ones against the rock.

a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

Yahweh of Armies will stir up a scourge against him, as in the slaughter of Midian at the rock of Oreb. His rod will be over the sea, and he will lift it up like he did against Egypt.

They come from a far country, from the uttermost part of heaven, even Yahweh, and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land.

A grievous vision is declared to me. The treacherous man deals treacherously, and the destroyer destroys. Go up, Elam; attack! I have stopped all of Media’s sighing.

They prepare the table. They set the watch. They eat. They drink. Rise up, you princes, oil the shield!

Yahweh’s sword is filled with blood. It is covered with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams; for Yahweh has a sacrifice in Bozrah, And a great slaughter in the land of Edom.

“I have raised up one from the north, and he has come, from the rising of the sun, one who calls on my name, and he shall come on rulers as on mortar, and as the potter treads clay.

Yahweh says to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have held, to subdue nations before him, and strip kings of their armor; to open the doors before him, and the gates shall not be shut:

I am Yahweh, and there is no one else. Besides me, there is no God. I will strengthen you, though you have not known me,

I call a ravenous bird from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. Yes, I have spoken. I will also bring it to pass. I have planned. I will also do it.

Your nakedness will be uncovered. Yes, your shame will be seen. I will take vengeance, and will spare no one.”

For death has come up into our windows. It has entered into our palaces to cut off the children from outside, and the young men from the streets.

Destroyers have come on all the bare heights in the wilderness; for the sword of Yahweh devours from the one end of the land even to the other end of the land. No flesh has peace.

“Now therefore, speak to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, ‘Yahweh says: “Behold, I frame evil against you, and devise a plan against you. Everyone return from his evil way now, and amend your ways and your doings.” ’

I have heard news from Yahweh, and an ambassador is sent among the nations, saying, “Gather yourselves together! Come against her! Rise up to the battle!”

Yahweh has opened his armory, and has brought out the weapons of his indignation; for the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, has a work to do in the land of the Chaldeans.

Kill all her bulls. Let them go down to the slaughter. Woe to them! For their day has come, the time of their visitation.

“Behold, a people comes from the north; and a great nation and many kings will be stirred up from the uttermost parts of the earth.

“Flee out of the middle of Babylon! Everyone save his own life! Don’t be cut off in her iniquity; for it is the time of Yahweh’s vengeance. He will render to her a recompense.

Set up a standard against the walls of Babylon! Make the watch strong! Set the watchmen, and prepare the ambushes; for Yahweh has both purposed and done that which he spoke concerning the inhabitants of Babylon.

“I will render to Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea all their evil that they have done in Zion in your sight,” says Yahweh.

May the violence done to me and to my flesh be on Babylon!” the inhabitant of Zion will say; and, “May my blood be on the inhabitants of Chaldea!” will Jerusalem say.

Though Babylon should mount up to the sky, and though she should fortify the height of her strength, yet destroyers will come to her from me,” says Yahweh.

“ ‘Behold, the day! Behold, it comes! Your doom has gone out. The rod has blossomed. Pride has budded.

It had strong branches for the scepters of those who ruled. Their stature was exalted among the thick boughs. They were seen in their height with the multitude of their branches.

“Son of man, prophesy, and say, ‘Yahweh says: “A sword! A sword! It is sharpened, and also polished.

It is sharpened that it may make a slaughter. It is polished that it may be as lightning. Should we then make mirth? The rod of my son condemns every tree.

“You, son of man, prophesy, and say, ‘The Lord Yahweh says this concerning the children of Ammon, and concerning their reproach: “A sword! A sword is drawn! It is polished for the slaughter, to cause it to devour, that it may be as lightning;

You have become guilty in your blood that you have shed, and are defiled in your idols which you have made! You have caused your days to draw near, and have come even to your years. Therefore I have made you a reproach to the nations, and a mocking to all the countries.

Then I lifted up my eyes, and saw, and behold, there stood before the river a ram which had two horns. The two horns were high; but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last.

Don’t rejoice, Israel, to jubilation like the nations; for you were unfaithful to your God. You love the wages of a prostitute at every grain threshing floor.

Because you have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried my finest treasures into your temples,

Yahweh says: “For three transgressions of the children of Ammon, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they have ripped open the pregnant women of Gilead, that they may enlarge their border.

For entangled like thorns, and drunken as with their drink, they are consumed utterly like dry stubble.

the horseman mounting, and the flashing sword, the glittering spear, and a multitude of slain, and a great heap of corpses, and there is no end of the bodies. They stumble on their bodies,

Won’t your debtors rise up suddenly, and wake up those who make you tremble, and you will be their victim?

The sun and moon stood still in the sky, at the light of your arrows as they went, at the shining of your glittering spear.

“Awake, sword, against my shepherd, and against the man who is close to me,” says Yahweh of Armies. “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered; and I will turn my hand against the little ones.

For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city will be taken, the houses rifled, and the women ravished. Half of the city will go out into captivity, and the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city.

This will be the plague with which Yahweh will strike all the peoples who have fought against Jerusalem: their flesh will consume away while they stand on their feet, and their eyes will consume away in their sockets, and their tongue will consume away in their mouth.

So from that day forward they took counsel that they might put him to death.

For judgment is without mercy to him who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

He will rule them with a rod of iron, shattering them like clay pots; as I also have received of my Father:

The angel took the censer, and he filled it with the fire of the altar, then threw it on the earth. Thunders, sounds, lightnings, and an earthquake followed.