“I will punish them in four different ways: I will have war kill them. I will have dogs drag off their dead bodies. I will have birds and wild beasts devour and destroy their corpses. ¹ 

“Then ¹  a second beast appeared, like a bear. It was raised up on one side, and there were three ribs ²  in its mouth between its teeth. ³  It was told, ⁴  ‘Get up and devour much flesh!’

“This is what he told me: ¹  ‘The fourth beast means that there will be a fourth kingdom on earth that will differ from all the other kingdoms. It will devour all the earth and will trample and crush it.

I will attack them like a bear robbed of her cubs – I will rip open their chests. I will devour them there like a lion – like a wild animal would tear them apart.

But I will punish you as your deeds deserve,’ says the Lord. ¹  ‘I will set fire to your palace; it will burn up everything around it.’” ² 

You pierce the heads of his warriors ¹  with a spear. ²  They storm forward to scatter us; ³  they shout with joy as if they were plundering the poor with no opposition. ⁴ 

I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword will devour flesh – the blood of the slaughtered and captured, the chief ¹  of the enemy’s leaders!’”

They will no longer be prey for the nations and the wild beasts will not devour them. They will live securely and no one will make them afraid.

You love to use all the words that destroy, ¹  and the tongue that deceives.

All of them are blazing like an oven; they devour their rulers. All of their kings fall – and none of them call on me!

Then Abner called out to Joab, “Must the sword devour forever? Don’t you realize that this will turn bitter in the end? When will you tell the people to turn aside from pursuing their brothers?”

Assyria will fall by a sword, but not one human-made; ¹  a sword not made by humankind will destroy them. ²  They will run away from this sword ³  and their young men will be forced to do hard labor.

The people I call my own attack me like birds of prey or like hyenas. ¹  But other birds of prey are all around them. ²  Let all the nations gather together like wild beasts. Let them come and destroy these people I call my own. ³ 

Syria from the east, and the Philistines from the west, they gobbled up Israelite territory. ¹  Despite all this, his anger does not subside, and his hand is ready to strike again. ² 

The light of Israel ¹  will become a fire, their Holy One ²  will become a flame; it will burn and consume the Assyrian king’s ³  briers and his thorns in one day.

You will stumble and fall, you proud city; no one will help you get up. I will set fire to your towns; it will burn up everything that surrounds you.” ¹ 

Seek the Lord so you can live! Otherwise he will break out ¹  like fire against Joseph’s ²  family; ³  the fire ⁴  will consume and no one will be able to quench it and save Bethel. ⁵ 

Their horses are faster than leopards and more alert ¹  than wolves in the desert. ²  Their horses ³  gallop, ⁴  their horses come a great distance; like a vulture ⁵  they swoop down quickly to devour their prey. ⁶ 

The Lord who rules over all will guard them, and they will prevail and overcome with sling stones. Then they will drink, and will become noisy like drunkards, ¹  full like the sacrificial basin or like the corners of the altar. ² 

“I will set fire to the walls of Damascus; it will burn up the palaces of Ben Hadad.” ¹