They wandered blindly through the streets, so defiled by blood that no one dared touch them.
Parallel translations
- WEB They wander as blind men in the streets. They are polluted with blood, So that men can’t touch their garments.
- KJV They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood, so that men could not touch their garments.
- BSB They wandered blind in the streets, defiled by this blood, so that no one dared to touch their garments.
- NKJV They wandered blind in the streets; They have defiled themselves with blood, So that no one would touch their garments.
- NASB They wandered, blind, in the streets; They were defiled with blood, Such that no one could touch their garments.
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
The defiled leaders staggered blindly through the streets, polluted with blood and untouchable.
Overview
The corrupt prophets and priests wander as blind men, so stained with bloodguilt that none may touch them. Their moral pollution becomes a ceremonial uncleanness that isolates them. The picture shows how sin defiles and separates, pointing to the cleansing from defilement that only Christ's blood provides (Heb. 9:14; 1 John 1:7).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Isa 1:15When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you. Yes, when you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood.
- Jer 2:34Also the blood of the souls of the innocent poor is found in your skirts. You did not find them breaking in; but it is because of all these things.
- Num 19:16“Whoever in the open field touches one who is slain with a sword, or a dead body, or a bone of a man, or a grave, shall be unclean seven days.
- Deut 28:28–29Yahweh will strike you with madness, with blindness, and with astonishment of heart.
- Isa 56:10His watchmen are blind. They are all without knowledge. They are all mute dogs. They can’t bark; dreaming, lying down, loving to slumber.
- Matt 15:14Leave them alone. They are blind guides of the blind. If the blind guide the blind, both will fall into a pit.”
- Isa 59:9–11Therefore is justice far from us, and righteousness doesn’t overtake us. We look for light, but see darkness; for brightness, but we walk in obscurity.
- Num 35:33“‘So you shall not pollute the land in which you are; for blood pollutes the land. No atonement can be made for the land for the blood that is shed in it, but by the blood of him who shed it.
- Hos 4:2There is cursing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery; they break boundaries, and bloodshed causes bloodshed.
- Mic 3:6–7“Therefore night is over you, with no vision, and it is dark to you, that you may not divine; and the sun will go down on the prophets, and the day will be black over them.
- Eph 4:18being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their hearts;
- Isa 29:10–12For Yahweh has poured out on you a spirit of deep sleep, and has closed your eyes, the prophets; and he has covered your heads, the seers.
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
The weeping over a ruined city and the steadfast mercies that are new every morning point to the man of sorrows who wept over Jerusalem and whose mercy rises new from the grave.
How Lamentations 4:14 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
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.