when your dread comes like a storm, and your destruction like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish overwhelm you.
Parallel translations
- WEB when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when your disaster comes on like a whirlwind; when distress and anguish come on you.
- KJV When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you.
- NKJV When your terror comes like a storm, And your destruction comes like a whirlwind, When distress and anguish come upon you.
- NASB When your dread comes like a storm And your disaster comes like a whirlwind, When distress and anguish come upon you.
- NLT when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when disaster engulfs you like a cyclone, and anguish and distress overwhelm you.
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
Calamity will sweep over the scornful like a storm and whirlwind. It matters because it pictures judgment as sudden, overwhelming, and inescapable.
Overview
The imagery of storm and whirlwind conveys disaster that cannot be resisted once it comes. Distress and anguish will overtake those who refused wisdom while there was opportunity. The verse warns that delay in repentance leaves one defenseless when judgment finally arrives.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Prov 3:25–26Do not fear sudden danger or the ruin that overtakes the wicked,
- Prov 10:24–25What the wicked man dreads will overtake him, but the desire of the righteous will be granted.
- Rom 2:9There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil, first for the Jew, then for the Greek;
- Ps 69:22–28May their table become a snare; may it be a retribution and a trap.
- 1 Th 5:3While people are saying, “Peace and security,” destruction will come upon them suddenly, like labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.
- Ps 58:9Before your pots can feel the burning thorns—whether green or dry—He will sweep them away.
- Luke 21:34–35But watch yourselves, or your hearts will be weighed down by dissipation, drunkenness, and the worries of life—and that day will spring upon you suddenly like a snare.
- Nah 1:3The LORD is slow to anger and great in power; the LORD will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. His path is in the whirlwind and storm, and clouds are the dust beneath His feet.
- Luke 21:23–26How miserable those days will be for pregnant and nursing mothers! For there will be great distress upon the land and wrath against this people.
- Isa 17:13The nations rage like the rush of many waters. He rebukes them, and they flee far away, driven before the wind like chaff on the hills, like tumbleweeds before a gale.
- Rev 6:15–17Then the kings of the earth, the nobles, the commanders, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and free man hid in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Wisdom personified, with God before creation and the agent of all things, anticipates Christ 'in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom' — the wisdom of God made flesh.
How Proverbs 1:27 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.