We have to pay for water to drink, and even firewood is expensive.
Parallel translations
- WEB We have drunken our water for money; Our wood is sold to us.
- KJV We have drunken our water for money; our wood is sold unto us.
- BSB We must buy the water we drink; our wood comes at a price.
- NKJV We pay for the water we drink, And our wood comes at a price.
- NASB We have to pay for our drinking water, Our wood comes to us at a price.
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
They must now pay even for their own water and firewood.
Overview
Conquered and dispossessed, the people are forced to buy basic necessities that were once freely theirs. This depicts the humiliation and deprivation of life under foreign domination. Such bondage and want sharpen the longing for the freedom and provision God gives, and for the living water Christ offers without cost (Isa. 55:1; John 4:14).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 3
- Isa 3:1For, behold, the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, takes away from Jerusalem and from Judah supply and support, the whole supply of bread, and the whole supply of water;
- Deut 28:48therefore you will serve your enemies whom Yahweh sends against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in lack of all things. He will put an iron yoke on your neck, until he has destroyed you.
- Ezek 4:9–17“Take for yourself also wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt, and put them in one vessel. Make bread of it. According to the number of the days that you shall lie on your side, even three hundred ninety days, you shall eat of it.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Commentaries & study tools
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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 5:4 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.