25 Outside, the sword will take their children, and inside, there will be terror; the young man and the young woman will be killed, the infant and the gray-haired man. ⓒ

26 “I would have said: I will cut them to pieces [12] and blot out the memory of them from mankind, ⓓ

27 if I had not feared provocation from the enemy, or feared that these foes might misunderstand and say: ‘Our own hand has prevailed; it wasn’t the LORD who did all this.’”