3:16 On that day they will say 1 to Jerusalem,
“Don’t be afraid, Zion!
Your hands must not be paralyzed from panic! 2
3:15 The Lord has removed the judgment against you; 3
he has turned back your enemy.
Israel’s king, the Lord, is in your midst!
You no longer need to fear disaster.
3:7 I thought, 4 ‘Certainly you will respect 5 me!
Now you will accept correction!’
If she had done so, her home 6 would not be destroyed 7
by all the punishments I have threatened. 8
But they eagerly sinned
in everything they did. 9
3:13 The Israelites who remain 10 will not act deceitfully.
They will not lie,
and a deceitful tongue will not be found in their mouth.
Indeed, they will graze peacefully like sheep 11 and lie down;
no one will terrify them.”
3:17 The Lord your God is in your midst;
he is a warrior who can deliver.
He takes great delight in you; 12
he renews you by his love; 13
he shouts for joy over you.” 14
2:15 This is how the once-proud city will end up 15 –
the city that was so secure. 16
She thought to herself, 17 “I am unique! No one can compare to me!” 18
What a heap of ruins she has become, a place where wild animals live!
Everyone who passes by her taunts her 19 and shakes his fist. 20
1 tn Heb “it will be said.” The passive construction has been translated as active for stylistic reasons.
2 tn Heb “your hands must not go limp.”
3 tn Heb “your judgments,” that is, “the judgments directed against you.” The translation reflects the implications of the parallelism.
5 tn Heb “said.”
6 tn Or “fear.” The second person verb form (“you will respect”) is feminine singular, indicating that personified Jerusalem is addressed.
7 tn Or “dwelling place.”
8 tn Heb “cut off.”
9 tn Heb “all which I have punished her.” The precise meaning of this statement and its relationship to what precedes are unclear.
10 tn Heb “But they got up early, they made corrupt all their actions.” The phrase “they got up early” probably refers to their eagerness to engage in sinful activities.
7 tn Or “the remnant of Israel.”
8 tn The words “peacefully like sheep” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
9 tn Heb “he rejoices over you with joy.”
10 tc The MT reads, “he is silent in his love,” but this makes no sense in light of the immediately preceding and following lines. Some take the Hiphil verb form as causative (see Job 11:3) rather than intransitive and translate, “he causes [you] to be silent by his love,” that is, “he soothes [you] by his love.” The present translation follows the LXX and assumes an original reading יְחַדֵּשׁ (yÿkhaddesh, “he renews”) with ellipsis of the object (“you”).
11 tn Heb “he rejoices over you with a shout of joy.”
11 tn Heb “this is the proud city.”
12 tn Heb “the one that lived securely.”
13 tn Heb “the one who says in her heart.”
14 tn Heb “I [am], and besides me there is no other.”
15 tn Heb “hisses”; or “whistles.”
16 sn Hissing (or whistling) and shaking the fist were apparently ways of taunting a defeated foe or an object of derision in the culture of the time.