Jeremiah 4:31

4:31 In fact, ¹  I hear a cry like that of a woman in labor,

a cry of anguish like that of a woman giving birth to her first baby.

It is the cry of Daughter Zion ²  gasping for breath,

reaching out for help, ³  saying, “I am done in! ⁴ 

My life is ebbing away before these murderers!”

Ezekiel 7:16-18

7:16 Their survivors will escape to the mountains and become like doves of the valleys; all of them will moan – each one for his iniquity. 7:17 All of their hands will hang limp; their knees will be wet with urine. ⁵  7:18 They will wear sackcloth, terror will cover them; shame will be on all their faces, and all of their heads will be shaved bald. ⁶ 

Micah 1:8-9

1:8 For this reason I ⁷  will mourn and wail;

I will walk around barefoot ⁸  and without my outer garments. ⁹ 

I will howl ¹⁰  like a wild dog, ¹¹ 

and screech ¹²  like an owl. ¹³ 

1:9 For Samaria’s ¹⁴  disease ¹⁵  is incurable.

It has infected ¹⁶  Judah;

it has spread to ¹⁷  the leadership ¹⁸  of my people

and has even contaminated Jerusalem! ¹⁹ 

[4:31]  ¹ tn The particle כִּי (ki) is more likely asseverative here than causal.

[4:31]  ² sn Jerusalem is personified as a helpless maiden.

[4:31]  ³ tn Heb “spreading out her hands.” The idea of asking or pleading for help is implicit in the figure.

[4:31]  ⁴ tn Heb “Woe, now to me!” See the translator’s note on 4:13 for the usage of “Woe to…”

[7:17]  ⁵ tn Heb “their knees will run with water.” The expression probably refers to urination caused by fright, which is how the LXX renders the phrase. More colloquial English would simply be “they will wet their pants,” but as D. I. Block (Ezekiel [NICOT], 1:261, n. 98) notes, the men likely wore skirts which were short enough to expose urine on the knees.

[7:18]  ⁶ tn Heb “baldness will be on their heads.”

[1:8]  ⁷ tn The prophet is probably the speaker here.

[1:8]  ⁸ tn Or “stripped.” The precise meaning of this Hebrew word is unclear. It may refer to walking barefoot (see 2 Sam 15:30) or to partially stripping oneself (see Job 12:17-19).

[1:8]  ⁹ tn Heb “naked.” This probably does not refer to complete nudity, but to stripping off one’s outer garments as an outward sign of the destitution felt by the mourner.

[1:8]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “I will make lamentation.”

[1:8]  ¹¹ tn Or “a jackal”; CEV “howling wolves.”

[1:8]  ¹² tn Heb “[make] a mourning.”

[1:8]  ¹³ tn Or perhaps “ostrich” (cf. ASV, NAB, NASB, NRSV, NLT).

[1:9]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “her”; the referent (Samaria) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:9]  ¹⁵ tc The MT reads the plural “wounds”; the singular is read by the LXX, Syriac, and Vg.

[1:9]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “come to.”

[1:9]  ¹⁷ tn Or “reached.”

[1:9]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “the gate.” Kings and civic leaders typically conducted important business at the city gate (see 1 Kgs 22:10 for an example), and the term is understood here to refer by metonymy to the leadership who would be present at the gate.

[1:9]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “to Jerusalem.” The expression “it has contaminated” do not appear in the Hebrew text, but have been supplied to fill out the parallelism with the preceding line.