And the public squares of the city will be filled with boys and girls playing in its squares.’
Parallel translations
- WEB The streets of the city will be full of boys and girls playing in its streets.”
- KJV And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof.
- BSB And the streets of the city will be filled with boys and girls playing there.”
- NKJV The streets of the city Shall be full of boys and girls Playing in its streets.’
- NLT And the streets of the city will be filled with boys and girls at play.
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 city's streets will be full of children at play. Safety, joy, and renewed life will fill the once-desolate Jerusalem.
Overview
Children playing freely in the streets is a vivid emblem of peace and security, the opposite of a city under siege or in ruins. It completes the picture of a thriving community spanning old and young. The promise pledges that God will replace desolation with abundant, joyful life.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Jer 31:13Then the virgin will rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old together; for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow.
- Ps 144:12–15Then our sons will be like well-nurtured plants, our daughters like pillars carved to adorn a palace.
- Jer 31:27“Behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man, and with the seed of animal.
- Ps 128:3–4Your wife will be as a fruitful vine, in the innermost parts of your house; your children like olive plants, around your table.
- Jer 30:19–20Out of them shall proceed thanksgiving and the voice of those who make merry. I will multiply them, and they shall not be few; I will also glorify them, and they will not be small.
- Matt 11:16–17“But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces, who call to their companions
- Lam 2:19Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches; Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord: Lift up your hands toward him for the life of your young children, that faint for hunger at the head of every street.
- Zech 2:4and said to him, “Run, speak to this young man, saying, ‘Jerusalem will be inhabited as villages without walls, because of the multitude of men and livestock in it.
- Jer 33:11the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voice of those who say, ‘Give thanks to Yahweh of Armies, for Yahweh is good, for his loving kindness endures forever;’ who bring thanksgiving into Yahweh’s house. For I will cause the captivity of the land to return as at the first,” says Yahweh.
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Christ at the center
The Branch who is both priest and king, the shepherd struck and the flock scattered, the king coming humble on a donkey, the one they pierced, the fountain opened for sin — Zechariah is dense with Christ.
How Zechariah 8:5 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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