I used you to smash men and women. I used you to smash old men and young men. I used you to smash young men and young women.

I used you to smash shepherds and their flocks. I used you to smash farmers and their teams of oxen. I used you to smash governors and leaders.”

I used you to smash horses and their riders. I used you to smash chariots and their drivers.

You will break them with an iron scepter; you will smash them like a potter’s jar!’”

These were the sons of Noah, and from them the whole earth was populated.

How blessed will be the one who grabs your babies and smashes them on a rock!

The nations run away when they hear a loud noise; the nations scatter when you spring into action!

He will lift a signal flag for the nations; he will gather Israel’s dispersed people and assemble Judah’s scattered people from the four corners of the earth.

“Babylon, you are my war club, my weapon for battle. I used you to smash nations. I used you to destroy kingdoms.

And I will smash them like wine bottles against one another, children and parents alike. I will not show any pity, mercy, or compassion. Nothing will keep me from destroying them,’ says the Lord.”

But the time is coming when I will send men against Moab who will empty it out. They will empty the towns of their people, then will lay those towns in ruins. I, the Lord, affirm it!

Gideon took a hundred men to the edge of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, just after they had changed the guards. They blew their trumpets and broke the jars they were carrying.

But Samuel said, “What have you done?” Saul replied, “When I saw that the army had started to abandon me and that you didn’t come at the appointed time and that the Philistines had assembled at Micmash,

My servants will bring the timber down from Lebanon to the sea. I will send it by sea in raft-like bundles to the place you designate. There I will separate the logs and you can carry them away. In exchange you will supply the food I need for my royal court.”

So in this way Jacob’s sin will be forgiven, and this is how they will show they are finished sinning: They will make all the stones of the altars like crushed limestone, and the Asherah poles and the incense altars will no longer stand.

This man, Jeconiah, will be like a broken pot someone threw away. He will be like a clay vessel that no one wants. Why will he and his children be forced into exile? Why will they be thrown out into a country they know nothing about?

Then I heard the man clothed in linen who was over the waters of the river as he raised both his right and left hands to the sky and made an oath by the one who lives forever: “It is for a time, times, and half a time. Then, when the power of the one who shatters the holy people has been exhausted, all these things will be finished.”