הָרַג

And when the Arameans had withdrawn, they left Joash severely wounded. His own servants conspired against him for shedding the blood of the son of Jehoiada the priest, and they killed him on his bed. So he died and was buried in the City of David, but not in the tombs of the kings.

As soon as the kingdom was firmly in his grasp, Amaziah executed the servants who had murdered his father the king.

For in one day Pekah son of Remaliah killed 120,000 valiant men in Judah. This happened because they had forsaken the LORD, the God of their fathers.

Zichri, a mighty man of Ephraim, killed Maaseiah the son of the king, Azrikam the governor of the palace, and Elkanah the second to the king.

But a prophet of the LORD named Oded was there, and he went out to meet the army that returned to Samaria. “Look,” he said to them, “because of His wrath against Judah, the LORD, the God of your fathers, has delivered them into your hand. But you have slaughtered them in a rage that reaches up to heaven.

So He brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who put their young men to the sword in the sanctuary, sparing neither young men nor young women, neither elderly nor infirm. God gave them all into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar,

And our enemies said, “Before they know or see a thing, we will come into their midst, kill them, and put an end to the work.”

Later, I went to the house of Shemaiah son of Delaiah, the son of Mehetabel, who was confined to his house. He said: “Let us meet at the house of God inside the temple. Let us shut the temple doors because they are coming to kill you—by night they are coming to kill you!”

But they were disobedient and rebelled against You; they flung Your law behind their backs. They killed Your prophets, who had admonished them to return to You. They committed terrible blasphemies.

And the letters were sent by couriers to each of the royal provinces with the order to destroy, kill, and annihilate all the Jews—young and old, women and children—and to plunder their possessions on a single day, the thirteenth day of Adar, the twelfth month.

For my people and I have been sold out to destruction, death, and annihilation. If we had merely been sold as menservants and maidservants, I would have remained silent, because no such distress would justify burdening the king.”

By these letters the king permitted the Jews in each and every city the right to assemble and defend themselves, to destroy, kill, and annihilate all the forces of any people or province hostile to them, including women and children, and to plunder their possessions.

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

They killed these ten sons of Haman son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews, but they did not lay a hand on the plunder.

On that day the number of those killed in the citadel of Susa was reported to the king,

…who said to Queen Esther, “In the citadel of Susa the Jews have killed and destroyed five hundred men, including Haman’s ten sons. What have they done in the rest of the royal provinces? Now what is your petition? It will be given to you. And what further do you request? It will be fulfilled.”

On the fourteenth day of the month of Adar, the Jews in Susa came together again and put to death three hundred men there, but they did not lay a hand on the plunder.

The rest of the Jews in the royal provinces also assembled to defend themselves and rid themselves of their enemies. They killed 75,000 who hated them, but they did not lay a hand on the plunder.

For resentment kills a fool, and envy slays the simple.

He will suck the poison of cobras; the fangs of a viper will kill him.

He lies in wait near the villages; in ambush he slays the innocent; his eyes watch in stealth for the helpless.

Yet for Your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.

Do not kill them, or my people will forget. Scatter them by Your power, and bring them down, O Lord, our shield.

God’s anger flared against them, and He put to death their strongest and subdued the young men of Israel.

When He slew them, they would seek Him; they repented and searched for God.

He killed their vines with hailstones and their sycamore-figs with sleet.

They kill the widow and the foreigner; they murder the fatherless.

He struck down many nations and slaughtered mighty kings:

…and slaughtered mighty kings—His loving devotion endures forever.

For the waywardness of the simple will slay them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them.

For she has brought many down to death; her slain are many in number.

…a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to break down and a time to build,

Nothing will remain but to crouch among the captives or fall among the slain. Despite all this, His anger is not turned away; His hand is still upraised.

But you are cast out of your grave like a rejected branch, covered by those slain with the sword, and dumped into a rocky pit like a carcass trampled underfoot.

You will not join them in burial, since you have destroyed your land and slaughtered your own people. The offspring of the wicked will never again be mentioned.

Then the firstborn of the poor will find pasture, and the needy will lie down in safety, but I will kill your root by famine, and your remnant will be slain.

But look, there is joy and gladness, butchering of cattle and slaughtering of sheep, eating of meat and drinking of wine: “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!”

For behold, the LORD is coming out of His dwelling to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. The earth will reveal her bloodshed and will no longer conceal her slain.

In that day the LORD will take His sharp, great, and mighty sword, and bring judgment on Leviathan the fleeing serpent—Leviathan the coiling serpent—and He will slay the dragon of the sea.

Has the LORD struck Israel as He struck her oppressors? Was she killed like those who slayed her?

For I hear a cry like a woman in labor, a cry of anguish like one bearing her first child—the cry of the Daughter of Zion gasping for breath, stretching out her hands to say, “Woe is me, for my soul faints before the murderers!”

I will appoint over them four kinds of destroyers, declares the LORD: the sword to kill, the dogs to drag away, and the birds of the air and beasts of the earth to devour and destroy.

Therefore, hand their children over to famine; pour out the power of the sword upon them. Let their wives become childless and widowed; let their husbands be slain by disease, their young men struck down by the sword in battle.

He has bent His bow like an enemy; His right hand is positioned. Like a foe He has killed all who were pleasing to the eye; He has poured out His wrath like fire on the tent of the Daughter of Zion.

Look, O LORD, and consider: Whom have You ever treated like this? Should women eat their offspring, the infants they have nurtured? Should priests and prophets be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?

Both young and old lie together in the dust of the streets. My young men and maidens have fallen by the sword. You have slain them in the day of Your anger; You have slaughtered them without compassion.

You have covered Yourself in anger and pursued us; You have killed without pity.

Slaughter the old men, the young men and maidens, the women and children; but do not go near anyone who has the mark. Now begin at My sanctuary.” So they began with the elders who were before the temple.