I will crush his enemies before him; I will strike down those who hate him.

The city is left in ruins; ¹  the gate is reduced to rubble. ² 

They are destroyed ¹  between morning and evening; ²  they perish forever ³  without anyone regarding it. ⁴ 

You must not present to the Lord something with testicles that are bruised, crushed, torn, or cut off; ¹  you must not do this in your land.

So the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country swooped ¹  down and attacked them ²  as far as Hormah. ³ 

One nation was crushed by another, and one city by another, for God caused them to be in great turmoil. ¹ 

Beat your plowshares ¹  into swords, and your pruning hooks ²  into spears! ³  Let the weak say, ‘I too am a warrior!’ ⁴ 

The Amorite inhabitants of that area ¹  confronted ²  you and chased you like a swarm of bees, striking you down from Seir as far as Hormah. ³ 

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.

It shatters in pieces like a clay jar, so shattered to bits that none of it can be salvaged. ¹  Among its fragments one cannot find a shard large enough ²  to scoop a hot coal from a fire ³  or to skim off water from a cistern.” ⁴ 

What do I see?” ¹  says the Lord. ²  “The soldiers ³  are terrified. They are retreating. They have been defeated. They are overcome with terror; ⁴  they desert quickly without looking back.

As for your sinful thing ¹  that you had made, the calf, I took it, melted it down, ²  ground it up until it was as fine as dust, and tossed the dust into the stream that flows down the mountain.

He eliminated the high places, smashed the sacred pillars to bits, and cut down the Asherah pole. ¹  He also demolished the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for up to that time ²  the Israelites had been offering incense to it; it was called Nehushtan. ³ 

He will judge disputes between nations; he will settle cases for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares, ¹  and their spears into pruning hooks. ²  Nations will not take up the sword against other nations, and they will no longer train for war.

All her carved idols will be smashed to pieces; all her metal cult statues will be destroyed by fire. ¹  I will make a waste heap ²  of all her images. Since ³  she gathered the metal ⁴  as a prostitute collects her wages, the idols will become a prostitute’s wages again.” ⁵ 

He will arbitrate ¹  between many peoples and settle disputes between many ²  distant nations. ³  They will beat their swords into plowshares, ⁴  and their spears into pruning hooks. ⁵  Nations will not use weapons ⁶  against other nations, and they will no longer train for war.

Indeed, I will no longer have compassion on the people of the land,” says the Lord, “but instead I will turn every last person over to his neighbor and his king. They will devastate the land, and I will not deliver it from them.”