4:10 “I sent against you a plague like one of the Egyptian plagues. 1
I killed your young men with the sword,
along with the horses you had captured.
I made the stench from the corpses 2 rise up into your nostrils.
Still you did not come back to me.”
The Lord is speaking!
4:11 “I overthrew some of you the way God 3 overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. 4
You were like a burning stick 5 snatched from the flames.
Still you did not come back to me.”
The Lord is speaking!
1 tn Heb “in the manner [or “way”] of Egypt.”
2 tn Heb “of your camps [or “armies”].”
3 tn Several English versions substitute the first person pronoun (“I”) here for stylistic reasons (e.g., NIV, NCV, TEV, CEV, NLT).
4 tn Heb “like God’s overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah.” The divine name may be used in an idiomatic superlative sense here, in which case one might translate, “like the great [or “disastrous”] overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah.”
5 tn Heb “like that which is burning.”