Parallel Verses
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.
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.
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.
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.
Themes
Interlinear
Towb
hem
References
Fausets
Word Count of 20 Translations in Lamentations 4:9
Verse Info
Context Readings
Zion Is Punished
8 Darker than blackness hath been their visage, They have not been known in out-places, Cleaved hath their skin unto their bone, It hath withered -- it hath been as wood. 9 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. 10 The hands of merciful women have boiled their own children, They have been for food to them, In the destruction of the daughter of my people.
Cross References
Leviticus 26:39
And those who are left of you -- they consume away in their iniquity, in the lands of your enemies; and also in the iniquities of their fathers, with them they consume away.
Ezekiel 24:23
And your bonnets are on your heads, And your shoes are on your feet, Ye do not mourn nor do ye weep, And ye have wasted away for your iniquities, And ye have howled one unto another.
Jeremiah 16:4
Of painful deaths they die, They are not lamented, nor are they buried, For dung on the face of the ground they are, And by sword and by famine are consumed, And their carcase hath been for food To the fowl of the heavens, And to the beast of the earth.
Ezekiel 33:10
And thou, son of man, say unto the house of Israel: Rightly ye have spoken, saying: Surely our transgressions and our sins are on us, And in them we are wasting away, How, then, do we live?