He will direct the blows of his battering rams against your walls and tear down your towers with his weapons. ¹ 

Into his right hand ¹  comes the portent for Jerusalem – to set up battering rams, to give the signal ²  for slaughter, to shout out the battle cry, ³  to set up battering rams against the gates, to erect a siege ramp, to build a siege wall.

Lay siege to it! Build siege works against it. Erect a siege ramp ¹  against it! Post soldiers outside it ²  and station battering rams around it.

For the sovereign master, ¹  the Lord who commands armies, has planned a day of panic, defeat, and confusion. ²  In the Valley of Vision ³  people shout ⁴  and cry out to the hill. ⁵ 

So Joab’s men ¹  came and laid siege against him in Abel of Beth Maacah. They prepared a siege ramp outside the city which stood against its outer rampart. As all of Joab’s soldiers were trying to break through ²  the wall so that it would collapse,

“How long will you torment me ¹  and crush ²  me with your words? ³ 

The next day, because we were violently battered by the storm, ¹  they began throwing the cargo overboard, ² 

When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days and a violent ¹  storm continued to batter us, ²  we finally abandoned all hope of being saved. ³ 

All of this is because ¹  the Lord who rules over all ²  has said: ‘Cut down the trees around Jerusalem and build up a siege ramp against its walls. ³  This is the city which is to be punished. ⁴  Nothing but oppression happens in it. ⁵ 

At that time ¹  those left in Israel, those who remain of the family ²  of Jacob, will no longer rely on a foreign leader that abuses them. ³  Instead they will truly ⁴  rely on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel. ⁵