You ¹  devour my people’s flesh, strip off their skin, and crush their bones. You chop them up like flesh in a pot ²  – like meat in a kettle.

your infants, your wives, and the ¹  foreigners living in your encampment, those who chop wood and those who carry water –

He called out loudly ¹  as follows: ²  ‘Chop down the tree and lop off its branches! Strip off its foliage and scatter its fruit! Let the animals flee from under it and the birds from its branches!

They invade like lumberjacks swinging their axes in a thick forest. ¹ 

So he went with them. When they arrived at the Jordan, they started cutting down trees.

At that time, ¹  I will destroy the military power ²  of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.”

Instead, this is what you must do to them: You must tear down their altars, shatter their sacred pillars, ¹  cut down their sacred Asherah poles, ²  and burn up their idols.

he tore down the altars and Asherah poles, demolished the idols, and smashed all the incense altars throughout the land of Israel. Then he returned to Jerusalem.

Look, the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies, is ready to cut off the branches with terrifying power. ¹  The tallest trees ²  will be cut down, the loftiest ones will be brought low.

Egypt will run away, hissing like a snake, ¹  as the enemy comes marching up in force. They will come against her with axes as if they were woodsmen chopping down trees.

The population of Egypt is like a vast, impenetrable forest. But I, the Lord, affirm ¹  that the enemy will cut them down. For those who chop them down will be more numerous than locusts. They will be too numerous to count. ² 

As for the king seeing a holy sentinel coming down from heaven and saying, ‘Chop down the tree and destroy it, but leave its taproot in the ground, with a band of iron and bronze around it, surrounded by the grass of the field. Let it become damp with the dew of the sky, and let it live with the wild animals, until seven periods of time go by for him’ –

Does an ax exalt itself over the one who wields it, or a saw magnify itself over the one who cuts with it? ¹  As if a scepter should brandish the one who raises it, or a staff should lift up what is not made of wood!

Rather you must destroy their altars, smash their images, and cut down their Asherah poles. ¹ 

“But there is hope for ¹  a tree: ²  If it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not fail.

It is burned ¹  and cut down. They die because you are displeased with them. ² 

May his descendants ¹  be cut off! ²  May the memory of them be wiped out by the time the next generation arrives! ³ 

One who quarries stones may be injured by them; one who splits logs may be endangered by them.

The thickets of the forest will be chopped down with an ax, and mighty Lebanon will fall. ¹ 

You will recognize them by their fruit. Grapes are not gathered ¹  from thorns or figs from thistles, are they? ²