Lectionary Calendar
Saturday, July 19th, 2025
the Week of Proper 10 / Ordinary 15
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Read the Bible

Contemporary English Version

Lamentations 4:10

Life in the city is so bad that loving mothers have boiled and eaten their own children.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Cannibalism;   Famine;   Prophecy;   Women;   Thompson Chain Reference - Cannibalism;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Woman;  

Dictionaries:

- Easton Bible Dictionary - Zedekiah;   Fausset Bible Dictionary - Sea Monster;   Zedekiah;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Afterbirth;   Famine and Drought;   Lamentations, Book of;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Acrostic;   Famine;   Mercy, Merciful;   Seethe;   People's Dictionary of the Bible - Messiah;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Pitiful;   Seethe;   Siege;   The Jewish Encyclopedia - Famine;   Poetry;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
The hands of compassionate womenhave cooked their own children;they became their foodduring the destruction of my dear people.
Hebrew Names Version
The hands of the pitiful women have boiled their own children; They were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
King James Version
The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
English Standard Version
The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children; they became their food during the destruction of the daughter of my people.
New American Standard Bible
The hands of compassionate women Boiled their own children; They became food for them Due to the destruction of the daughter of my people.
New Century Version
With their own hands kind women cook their own children. They became food when my people were destroyed.
Amplified Bible
The hands of compassionate women Boiled their own children; They became food for them Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people [Judah].
World English Bible
The hands of the pitiful women have boiled their own children; They were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
Geneva Bible (1587)
The hands of the pitifull women haue sodden their owne children, which were their meate in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
The hands of compassionate women Boiled their own children; They became food for them Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.
Legacy Standard Bible
The hands of compassionate womenBoiled their own children;They became food for themBecause of the destruction of the daughter of my people.
Berean Standard Bible
The hands of compassionate women have cooked their own children, who became their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
Complete Jewish Bible
With their own hands compassionate women have cooked their own children; their children became their food when the daughter of my people was destroyed.
Darby Translation
The hands of pitiful women have boiled their own children: they were their meat in the ruin of the daughter of my people.
Easy-to-Read Version
Then even nice women cooked their own children. The children were food for their mothers. This happened when my people were destroyed.
George Lamsa Translation
The hands of compassionate women have cooked their own children; they were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
Good News Translation
The disaster that came to my people brought horror; loving mothers boiled their own children for food.
Lexham English Bible
The hands of compassionate women, have cooked their children; they became as something to eat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
Literal Translation
The hands of the compassionate women have boiled their own children; they became food to them in the ruin of the daughter of my people.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
The wome (which of nature are pitefull) haue sodden their owne children with their hondes: that they might be their meate, in ye miserable destruccion of the doughter of my people.
American Standard Version
The hands of the pitiful women have boiled their own children; They were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
Bible in Basic English
The hands of kind-hearted women have been boiling their children; they were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
The hands of women full of compassion have sodden their own children; they were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
King James Version (1611)
The hands of the pitifull women haue sodden their owne children, they were their meate in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
The women (whiche of nature are pitifull) haue sodden their owne chyldren with their hands, that they might be their meate in the miserable destruction of the daughter of my people.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
JOD. The hands of tender-hearted women have sodden their own children: they became meat for them in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
English Revised Version
The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children; they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Joth. The hondis of merciful wymmen sethiden her children; thei weren maad the metis of tho wymmen in the sorewe of the douyter of my puple.
Update Bible Version
The hands of the pitiful women have boiled their own children; They were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
Webster's Bible Translation
The hands of the pitiful women have boiled their own children: they were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
New English Translation

י (Yod)

The hands of tenderhearted women cooked their own children, who became their food, when my people were destroyed.
New King James Version
The hands of the compassionate women Have cooked their own children; They became food for them In the destruction of the daughter of my people.
New Living Translation
Tenderhearted women have cooked their own children. They have eaten them to survive the siege.
New Life Bible
Women who had shown loving-kindness have boiled their own children for food, because my people are destroyed.
New Revised Standard
The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children; they became their food in the destruction of my people.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
The hands of compassionate women, have cooked their own children, - they have served as nourishment to them, in the grievous injury of the daughter of my people.
Douay-Rheims Bible
Jod. The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
Revised Standard Version
The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children; they became their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
Young's Literal Translation
The hands of merciful women have boiled their own children, They have been for food to them, In the destruction of the daughter of my people.
THE MESSAGE
Nice and kindly women boiled their own children for supper. This was the only food in town when my dear people were broken.

Contextual Overview

1 The Prophet Speaks: The purest gold is ruined and has lost its shine; jewels from the temple lie scattered in the streets. 2 These are Zion's people, worth more than purest gold; yet they are counted worthless like dishes of clay. 3 Even jackals nurse their young, but my people are like ostriches that abandon their own. 4 Babies are so thirsty that their tongues are stuck to the roof of the mouth. Children go begging for food, but no one gives them any. 5 All who ate expensive foods lie starving in the streets; those who grew up in luxury now sit on trash heaps. 6 My nation was punished worse than the people of Sodom, whose city was destroyed in a flash without the help of human hands. 7 The leaders of Jerusalem were purer than snow and whiter than milk; their bodies were healthy and glowed like jewels. 8 Now they are blacker than tar, and no one recognizes them; their skin clings to their bones and is drier than firewood. 9 Being killed with a sword is better than slowly starving to death. 10 Life in the city is so bad that loving mothers have boiled and eaten their own children.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

hands: Lamentations 4:3, Lamentations 2:20, 2 Kings 6:26-29

pitiful: Isaiah 49:15

in: Lamentations 3:48, Deuteronomy 28:56, Deuteronomy 28:57, 2 Kings 6:29

Reciprocal: Leviticus 26:29 - General Deuteronomy 28:53 - the fruit 2 Kings 6:28 - Give thy son Psalms 59:15 - for meat Isaiah 8:21 - hardly bestead Isaiah 9:20 - And he Isaiah 22:2 - thy slain Isaiah 36:12 - that they may Jeremiah 4:11 - daughter Jeremiah 6:26 - daughter Jeremiah 15:9 - She that hath Jeremiah 19:9 - eat the Jeremiah 37:21 - until Lamentations 1:20 - abroad Lamentations 2:11 - for Ezekiel 4:16 - eat Ezekiel 5:10 - the fathers Ezekiel 14:13 - break Ezekiel 16:5 - eye Matthew 24:19 - General Mark 13:17 - General Luke 21:23 - woe

Cross-References

Genesis 3:13
The Lord God then asked the woman, "What have you done?" "The snake tricked me," she answered. "And I ate some of that fruit."
Genesis 4:9
Afterwards the Lord asked Cain, "Where is Abel?" "How should I know?" he answered. "Am I supposed to look after my brother?"
Genesis 4:10
Then the Lord said: Why have you done this terrible thing? You killed your own brother, and his blood flowed onto the ground. Now his blood is calling out for me to punish you.
Genesis 9:5
I created humans to be like me, and I will punish any animal or person that takes a human life. If an animal kills someone, that animal must die. And if a person takes the life of another, that person must be put to death.
Genesis 18:20
The Lord said, "Abraham, I have heard that the people of Sodom and Gomorrah are doing all kinds of evil things.
Exodus 3:7
The Lord said: I have seen how my people are suffering as slaves in Egypt, and I have heard them beg for my help because of the way they are being mistreated. I feel sorry for them,
Numbers 35:33
I, the Lord , live among you people of Israel, so your land must be kept pure. But when a murder takes place, blood pollutes the land, and it becomes unclean. If that happens, the murderer must be put to death, so the land will be clean again. Keep murder out of Israel!
Joshua 7:19
"Achan," Joshua said, "the Lord God of Israel has decided that you are guilty. Is this true? Tell me what you did, and don't try to hide anything."
Job 16:18
If I should die, I beg the earth not to cover my cry for justice.
Job 24:12
And along the city streets, the wounded and dying cry out, yet God does nothing.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children,.... Such as were naturally, and agreeably to their sex, pitiful and compassionate; merciful to the poor, as the Targum; and especially tenderhearted to their own offspring; yet, by reason of the soreness of the famine, became so cruel and hardhearted, as to take their own children, and slay them with their own hands, cut them to pieces, put them into a pot of water, and make a fire and boil them, and then eat them, as follows:

they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people: at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem. This strange and unnatural action was foretold by Moses, Deuteronomy 28:56; and though we have no particular instance of it on record, as done at the siege of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, yet no doubt there was, as may be concluded from the words: and at the siege of it by the Romans, when many things here spoken of had a fuller accomplishment, we have a remarkable instance of it, which Josephus a relates; an illustrious woman, named Mary, pressed with the famine, slew her own son, a sucking child, boiled him, and ate part of him, and laid up the rest; which was found by the seditious party that broke into her house, which struck them with the utmost horror; Deuteronomy 28:56- :.

a De Bello Jud. l. 6. c. 3. sect. 4.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Pitiful - i. e. tender-hearted, compassionate. meat is used for food Psalms 69:21. What is here stated actually occurred during the siege of Jerusalem by Titus.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 10. The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own childrenLamentations 2:20. But here there is a reference to mothers eating their own children; and this was done, not by mothers cruel and brutal, but by נשים רחמניות nashim rachmaniyoth, the compassionate, the tender-hearted mothers. From these horrible scenes it is well to pass with as hasty a step as possible.


 
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