Isaiah 13:7-9

13:7 For this reason all hands hang limp, ¹ 

every human heart loses its courage. ² 

13:8 They panic –

cramps and pain seize hold of them

like those of a woman who is straining to give birth.

They look at one another in astonishment;

their faces are flushed red. ³ 

13:9 Look, the Lord’s day of judgment ⁴  is coming;

it is a day of cruelty and savage, raging anger, ⁵ 

destroying ⁶  the earth ⁷ 

and annihilating its sinners.

Jeremiah 48:42-44

48:42 Moab will be destroyed and no longer be a nation, ⁸ 

because she has vaunted herself against the Lord.

48:43 Terror, pits, and traps ⁹  are in store

for the people who live in Moab. ¹⁰ 

I, the Lord, affirm it! ¹¹ 

48:44 Anyone who flees at the sound of terror

will fall into a pit.

Anyone who climbs out of the pit

will be caught in a trap. ¹² 

For the time is coming

when I will punish the people of Moab. ¹³ 

I, the Lord, affirm it! ¹⁴ 

[13:7]  ¹ tn Heb “drop”; KJV “be faint”; ASV “be feeble”; NAB “fall helpless.”

[13:7]  ² tn Heb “melts” (so NAB).

[13:8]  ³ tn Heb “their faces are faces of flames.” Their faces are flushed with fear and embarrassment.

[13:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “the day of the Lord.”

[13:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “[with] cruelty, and fury, and rage of anger.” Three synonyms for “anger” are piled up at the end of the line to emphasize the extraordinary degree of divine anger that will be exhibited in this judgment.

[13:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “making desolate.”

[13:9]  ⁷ tn Or “land” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NLT).

[48:42]  ⁸ tn Heb “Moab will be destroyed from [being] a people.”

[48:43]  ⁹ sn There is an extended use of assonance here and in the parallel passage in Isa 24:17. The Hebrew text reads פַּחַד וָפַחַת וָפָח (pakhad vafakhat vafakh). The assonance is intended to underscore the extensive trouble that is in store for them.

[48:43]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “are upon you, inhabitant of Moab.” This is another example of the rapid switch in person or direct address (apostrophe) in the midst of a third person description or prediction which the present translation typically keeps in the third person for smoother English style.

[48:43]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[48:44]  ¹² sn Jer 48:43-44a are in the main the same as Isa 24:17-18 which shows that the judgment was somewhat proverbial. For a very similar kind of argumentation see Amos 5:19; judgment is unavoidable.

[48:44]  ¹³ tn Heb “For I will bring upon her, even upon Moab, the year of her punishment.”

[48:44]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”