Because it is a trial, and what if the sword contemn even the rod? it shall be no more, saith the Lord GOD.
Because it is a trial - rather, 'For there is a trial' being made; the sword of the Lord will subject all to the ordeal.
And what if the sword contemn even the rod? - as he already foretold it would, in Ezekiel 21:10. 'What, then, if it contemn even the rod' (sceptre) of Judah? Compare as to a similar scourge of unsparing trial Job 9:23.
It shall be no more - the sceptre of Judah; i:e., the state must necessarily then come to an end. Fulfilled in part at the overthrow of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar, but fully at the time of "Shiloh's (Messiah's) coming (Genesis 49:10), when Judea became a Roman province.