They hunted our steps So that we could not walk in our streets; Our end drew near, Our days were finished For our end had come.
Parallel translations
- WEB They hunt our steps, so that we can’t go in our streets: Our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end has come.
- KJV They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets: our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.
- BSB They stalked our every step, so that we could not walk in our streets. Our end drew near, our time ran out, for our end had come!
- NKJV They tracked our steps So that we could not walk in our streets. Our end was near; Our days were over, For our end had come.
- NLT We couldn’t go into the streets without danger to our lives. Our end was near; our days were numbered. We were doomed!
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
Enemies stalked their every step, so that the end of the city had clearly come.
Overview
The people could not even walk the streets without being hunted, and they recognized their days were numbered. The sense that 'our end has come' marks the finality of judgment. This despair over a doomed city underscores humanity's helplessness apart from divine rescue, the rescue God grants in Christ (Lam. 4:17-19).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Amos 8:2He said, “Amos, what do you see?” I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then Yahweh said to me, “The end has come on my people Israel. I will not again pass by them any more.
- Ezek 7:2–12“You, son of man, thus says the Lord Yahweh to the land of Israel, ‘An end! The end has come on the four corners of the land.
- Ps 140:11An evil speaker won’t be established in the earth. Evil will hunt the violent man to overthrow him.
- Jer 16:16“Behold, I will send for many fishermen,” says Yahweh, “and they shall fish them up; and afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks.
- Lam 3:52They have chased me relentlessly like a bird, those who are my enemies without cause.
- 2 Kgs 25:4–5Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war fled by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king’s garden (now the Chaldeans were against the city around it); and the king went by the way of the Arabah.
- Jer 1:12Then Yahweh said to me, “You have seen well; for I watch over my word to perform it.”
- Ezek 12:27“Son of man, behold, they of the house of Israel say, ‘The vision that he sees is for many day to come, and he prophesies of times that are far off.’
- Ezek 12:22–23“Son of man, what is this proverb that you have in the land of Israel, saying, ‘The days are prolonged, and every vision fails?’
- Job 10:16If my head is held high, you hunt me like a lion. Again you show yourself powerful to me.
- Jer 51:33For Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says: “The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time when it is trodden. Yet a little while, and the time of harvest shall come for her.”
- Jer 39:4–5When Zedekiah the king of Judah and all the men of war saw them, then they fled, and went out of the city by night, by the way of the king’s garden, through the gate between the two walls; and he went out toward the Arabah.
- Jer 52:7–9Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war fled, and went out of the city by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king’s garden. Now the Chaldeans were against the city all around. The men of war went toward the Arabah,
- 1 Sam 24:14Against whom has the king of Israel come out? Whom do you pursue? A dead dog? A flea?
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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 4:18 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.