“In that day the fair virgins And strong young men Shall faint from thirst.
Parallel translations
- WEB In that day the beautiful virgins and the young men will faint for thirst.
- KJV In that day shall the fair virgins and young men faint for thirst.
- BSB In that day the lovely young women—the young men as well—will faint from thirst.
- NASB “On that day the beautiful virgins And the young men will faint from thirst.
- NLT Beautiful girls and strong young men will grow faint in that day, thirsting for the Lord’s word.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Even the strongest, beautiful young women and vigorous young men, will faint with spiritual thirst. The vitality of youth offers no protection from the famine of God's word.
Overview
Those normally full of strength and life will collapse, showing that the spiritual famine spares no one. The thirst is ultimately for God himself, whom they cannot find. Only Christ satisfies this deepest thirst, offering living water so that whoever drinks of him will never thirst again.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Hos 2:3Lest I strip her naked, and make her bare as in the day that she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and kill her with thirst.
- Lam 2:21“The youth and the old man lie on the ground in the streets. My virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword. You have killed them in the day of your anger. You have slaughtered, and not pitied.
- Lam 1:18“Yahweh is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment. Please hear all you peoples, and see my sorrow. My virgins and my young men have gone into captivity.
- Isa 41:17–20The poor and needy seek water, and there is none. Their tongue fails for thirst. I, Yahweh, will answer them. I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.
- Lam 2:10The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground, they keep silence; They have cast up dust on their heads; they have clothed themselves with sackcloth: The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
- Zech 9:17For how great is his goodness, and how great is his beauty! Grain will make the young men flourish, and new wine the virgins.
- Ps 63:1A Psalm by David, when he was in the desert of Judah. God, you are my God. I will earnestly seek you. My soul thirsts for you. My flesh longs for you, in a dry and weary land, where there is no water.
- Jer 48:18“You daughter who dwells in Dibon, come down from your glory, and sit in thirst; for the destroyer of Moab has come up against you, he has destroyed your strongholds.
- Deut 32:25Outside the sword will bereave, and in the rooms, terror; on both young man and virgin, the nursing infant with the gray-haired man.
- Isa 40:30Even the youths faint and get weary, and the young men utterly fall;
- Ps 144:12–15Then our sons will be like well-nurtured plants, our daughters like pillars carved to adorn a palace.
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Christ at the center
Amid judgment on injustice, Amos promises the raising up of David's fallen tent — read by James in Acts 15 as the ingathering of the nations into the kingdom of the risen Christ.
How Amos 8:13 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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