¹⁵ “If I were to cause predatory beasts to pass through the land and they ravaged it and depopulated it of children, and it became desolate so that no one would pass through because of the predators, ¹⁶ though these three men were in the land, as I live,” says the Lord God, “they could not save either their sons or their daughters. They alone would be saved, but the land would be desolate (ruined, deserted). ¹⁷ Or if I were to bring a sword on that land and say, ‘Let a sword go through the land and cut off man and animal from it,’