Parallel Verses
A Conservative Version
Those who are slain with the sword are better than those who are slain with hunger, for these pine away, stricken through, for want of the fruits of the field.
New American Standard Bible
Than those
For they
For lack of the fruits of
King James Version
They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.
Holman Bible
ט Tet
than those slain by hunger,
who waste away, pierced with pain
because the fields lack produce.
International Standard Version
Those who die by the sword are better off than those who die from starvation, who slowly waste away like those pierced through for lack of food from the fields.
American Standard Version
They that are slain with the sword are better than they that are slain with hunger; For these pine away, stricken through, for want of the fruits of the field.
Amplified
Those killed with the sword
Are more fortunate than those killed with hunger;
For the hungry pine and ebb away,
For the lack of the fruits of the field.
Bible in Basic English
Those who have been put to the sword are better off than those whose death is caused by need of food; for these come to death slowly, burned up like the fruit of the field.
Darby Translation
The slain with the sword are happier than the slain with hunger; for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.
Julia Smith Translation
Those wounded by the sword were good above those wounded by famine: these will flow away, being thrust through from the produce of the field.
King James 2000
They that are slain with the sword are better than they that are slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for lack of the fruits of the field.
Lexham Expanded Bible
Happier were [the] victims of [the] sword than the victims of famine; they have pined away, very hungry for the crops of my field.
Modern King James verseion
Better are the ones slain by the sword than the ones slain by hunger; those who pine away, pierced because the fruits of my fields failed.
Modern Spelling Tyndale-Coverdale
{Tet} They that be slain with the sword, are happier than such as die of hunger, and perish away famishing for the fruits of the field.
NET Bible
(Tet) Those who died by the sword are better off than those who die of hunger, those who waste away, struck down from lack of food.
New Heart English Bible
Those who are killed with the sword are better than those who are killed with hunger; those who waste away, pierced through, for lack of the fruits of the field.
The Emphasized Bible
Better are the slain of the sword, than the slain of the famine, - for, these, pine away, stricken through, wanting the produce of the field.
Webster
They that are slain with the sword are better than they that are slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.
World English Bible
Those who are killed with the sword are better than those who are killed with hunger; For these pine away, stricken through, for want of the fruits of the field.
Youngs Literal Translation
Better have been the pierced of a sword Than the pierced of famine, For these flow away, pierced through, Without the increase of the field.
Themes
Interlinear
Towb
hem
References
Fausets
Word Count of 20 Translations in Lamentations 4:9
Verse Info
Context Readings
Zion Is Punished
8 Their visage is blacker than a coal. They are not known in the streets. Their skin clings to their bones. It is withered. It has become like a stick. 9 Those who are slain with the sword are better than those who are slain with hunger, for these pine away, stricken through, for want of the fruits of the field. 10 The hands of the pitiful women have boiled their own children. They were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
Cross References
Leviticus 26:39
And those who are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies' lands, and also in the iniquities of their fathers they shall pine away with them.
Ezekiel 24:23
And your turbans shall be upon your heads, and your shoes upon your feet. Ye shall not mourn nor weep, but ye shall pine away in your iniquities, and moan one toward another.
Jeremiah 16:4
They shall die grievous deaths. They shall not be lamented, nor shall they be buried; they shall be as dung upon the face of the ground. And they shall be consumed by the sword, and by famine. And their dead bodies shall be food fo
Ezekiel 33:10
And thou, son of man, say to the house of Israel, Thus ye speak, saying, Our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we pine away in them. How then can we live?