2 Kings 19:26

Their residents are powerless, ¹  they are terrified and ashamed. They are as short-lived as plants in the field, or green vegetation. ²  They are as short-lived as grass on the rooftops ³  when it is scorched by the east wind. ⁴ 

Their people, drained of power, are dismayed and put to shame. They are like plants in the field, like tender green shoots, like grass sprouting on the roof, scorched before it grows up.

‘Therefore their inhabitants were short of strength, They were dismayed and put to shame; They were as the vegetation of the field and as the green herb, As grass on the housetops is scorched before it is grown up.

That is why their people have so little power and are such easy prey for you. They are as helpless as the grass, as easily trampled as tender green shoots. They are like grass sprouting on a housetop, easily scorched by the sun.

Leaving their people dispirited, slumped shoulders, limp souls. Useless as weeds, fragile as grass, insubstantial as wind-blown chaff.

This is why their townsmen had no power, they were broken and put to shame; they were like the grass of the field and the green plant, like grass on the house-tops.

while their inhabitants, shorn of strength, are dismayed and confounded; they have become like plants of the field and like tender grass, like grass on the housetops, blighted before it is grown.

Therefore their inhabitants had little power; They were dismayed and confounded; They were as the grass of the field And the green herb, As the grass on the housetops And grain blighted before it is grown.

Their residents are powerless, ¹  they are terrified and ashamed. They are as short-lived as plants in the field, or green vegetation. ²  They are as short-lived as grass on the rooftops ³  when it is scorched by the east wind. ⁴ 

¹ tn Heb “short of hand.”

² tn Heb “they are plants in the field and green vegetation.” The metaphor emphasizes how short-lived these seemingly powerful cities really were. See Ps 90:5-6; Isa 40:6-8, 24.

³ tn Heb “[they are] grass on the rooftops.” See the preceding note.

⁴ tc The Hebrew text has “scorched before the standing grain” (perhaps meaning “before it reaches maturity”), but it is preferable to emend קָמָה (qamah), “standing grain,” to קָדִים (qadim), “east wind” (with the support of 1Q Isa^a in Isa 37:27).