Lexicon :: Strong's H2026 - hāraḡ

I went to the house of Shemaiah son of Delaiah, son of Mehetabel, who was restricted to his house. He said:

Let’s meet at the house of God,

inside the temple.

Let’s shut the temple doors

because they’re coming to kill you.

They’re coming to kill you tonight![fn]

But they were disobedient and rebelled against you.

They flung your law behind their backs

and killed your prophets

who warned them

in order to turn them back to you.

They committed terrible blasphemies.

Letters were sent by couriers to each of the royal provinces telling the officials to destroy, kill, and annihilate all the Jewish people ​— ​young and old, women and children ​— ​and plunder their possessions on a single day, the thirteenth day of Adar, the twelfth month.[fn]

“For my people and I have been sold to destruction, death, and annihilation. If we had merely been sold as male and female slaves, I would have kept silent. Indeed, the trouble wouldn’t be worth burdening the king.”

The king’s edict gave the Jews in each and every city the right to assemble and defend themselves, to destroy, kill, and annihilate every ethnic and provincial army hostile to them, including women and children, and to take their possessions as spoils of war.

In the fortress of Susa the Jews killed and destroyed five hundred men,

For anger kills a fool,

and jealousy slays the gullible.

He will suck the poison of cobras;

a viper’s fangs[fn] will kill him.

He waits in ambush near settlements;

he kills the innocent in secret places.

His eyes are on the lookout for the helpless;

Because of you we are being put to death all day long;

we are counted as sheep to be slaughtered.

Do not kill them; otherwise, my people will forget.

By your power, make them homeless wanderers

and bring them down,

Lord, our shield.

God’s anger flared up against them,

and he killed some of their best men.

He struck down Israel’s fit young men.

They kill the widow and the resident alien

and murder the fatherless.

He struck down many nations

and slaughtered mighty kings:

and slaughtered famous kings —

His faithful love endures forever.

“For the apostasy of the inexperienced will kill them,

and the complacency of fools will destroy them.

For she has brought many down to death;

her victims are countless.[fn]

a time to kill and a time to heal;

a time to tear down and a time to build;

There will be nothing to do

except crouch among the prisoners

or fall among the slain.

In all this, his anger has not turned away,

and his hand is still raised to strike.

But you are thrown out without a grave,

like a worthless branch,

covered by those slain with the sword

and dumped into a rocky pit like a trampled corpse.

But look: joy and gladness,

butchering of cattle, slaughtering of sheep and goats,

eating of meat, and drinking of wine —

“Let’s eat and drink, for tomorrow we die! ”

For look, the LORD is coming from his place

to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity.

The earth will reveal the blood shed on it

and will no longer conceal her slain.

On that day the LORD with his relentless, large, strong sword will bring judgment on Leviathan, the fleeing serpent ​— ​Leviathan, the twisting serpent. He will slay the monster that is in the sea.

I hear a cry like a woman in labor,

a cry of anguish like one bearing her first child.

The cry of Daughter Zion gasping for breath,

stretching out her hands:

“Woe is me, for my life is weary

because of the murderers! ”

“I will ordain four kinds[fn] of judgment for them” ​— ​this is the LORD’s declaration ​— ​“the sword to kill, the dogs to drag away, and the birds of the sky and the wild animals of the land to devour and destroy.

Therefore, hand their children over to famine,

and give them over to the power of the sword.

Let their wives become childless and widowed,

their husbands slain by deadly disease,[fn]

their young men struck down by the sword in battle.

He has strung his bow like an enemy;

his right hand is positioned like an adversary.

He has killed everyone who was the delight to the eye,

pouring out his wrath like fire

on the tent of Daughter Zion.

“You have covered yourself in anger and pursued us;

you have killed without compassion.

“Slaughter the old men, the young men and women, as well as the children and older women, but do not come near anyone who has the mark. Begin at my sanctuary.” So they began with the elders who were in front of the temple.

“The sword is given to be polished,

to be grasped in the hand.

It is sharpened, and it is polished,

to be put in the hand of the slayer.’

“They exposed her nakedness, seized her sons and daughters, and killed her with the sword. Since they executed judgment against her, she became notorious among women.

“and her villages on the mainland will be slaughtered by the sword. Then they will know that I am the LORD.”

“Will you still say, “I am a god,”

in the presence of those who slay[fn] you?

Yet you will be only a man, not a god,

in the hands of those who kill you.

He said to me, “Prophesy to the breath,[fn] prophesy, son of man. Say to it: This is what the Lord GOD says: Breath, come from the four winds and breathe into these slain so that they may live! ”