I will bring on you an avenging sword, a covenant vengeance. ¹  Although ²  you will gather together into your cities, I will send pestilence among you and you will be given into enemy hands. ³ 

They will stumble over each other as those who flee before a sword, though ¹  there is no pursuer, and there will be no one to take a stand ²  for you before your enemies.

Why has the Lord brought us into this land only to be killed by the sword, that our wives and our children should become plunder? Wouldn’t it be better for us to return to Egypt?”

For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, and you will fall by the sword. Because you have turned away from the Lord, the Lord will not be with you.”

And whoever touches the body of someone killed with a sword in the open fields, ¹  or the body of someone who died of natural causes, ²  or a human bone, or a grave, will be unclean seven days. ³ 

They killed the kings of Midian in addition to those slain – Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba – five Midianite kings. ¹  They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword. ² 

The sword will make people childless outside, and terror will do so inside; they will destroy ¹  both the young man and the virgin, the infant and the gray-haired man.

I will sharpen my lightning-like sword, and my hand will grasp hold of the weapon of judgment; ¹  I will execute vengeance on my foes, and repay those who hate me! ² 

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!’”

You have joy, Israel! Who is like you? You are a people delivered by the Lord, your protective shield and your exalted sword. May your enemies cringe before you; may you trample on their backs.

When Joshua was near ¹  Jericho, ²  he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him holding a drawn sword. ³  Joshua approached him and asked him, “Are you on our side or allied with our enemies?” ⁴ 

That day Joshua captured Makkedah and put the sword to it and its king. He annihilated everyone who lived in it; he left no survivors. He did to its king what he had done to the king of Jericho. ¹ 

The Lord handed it and its king over to Israel, and Israel ¹  put the sword to all who lived there; they ²  left no survivors. They ³  did to its king what they ⁴  had done to the king of Jericho. ⁵ 

The Lord handed Lachish over to Israel and they ¹  captured it on the second day. They put the sword to all who lived there, just as they had done to Libnah.

They captured it and put the sword to its king, all its surrounding cities, and all who lived in it; they ¹  left no survivors. As they ²  had done at Eglon, they ³  annihilated it and all who lived there.

(The Danites failed to conquer their territory, ¹  so they went up and fought with Leshem and captured it. They put the sword to it, took possession of it, and lived in it. They renamed it ²  Dan after their ancestor. ³ )

Now Barak chased the chariots and the army all the way to Harosheth Haggoyim. Sisera’s whole army died ¹  by the edge of the sword; not even one survived! ² 

The other man said, ¹  “Without a doubt this symbolizes ²  the sword of Gideon son of Joash, the Israelite. God is handing Midian and all the army over to him.”

All three units blew their trumpets and broke their jars. They held the torches in their left hand and the trumpets in their right. ¹  Then they yelled, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!”

Now Zebah and Zalmunna were in Karkor with their armies. There were about fifteen thousand survivors from the army of the eastern peoples; a hundred and twenty thousand sword-wielding soldiers had been killed. ¹