13:7 For this reason all hands hang limp, 1
every human heart loses its courage. 2
13:8 They panic –
cramps and pain seize hold of them
like those of a woman who is straining to give birth.
They look at one another in astonishment;
their faces are flushed red. 3
13:9 Look, the Lord’s day of judgment 4 is coming;
it is a day of cruelty and savage, raging anger, 5
destroying 6 the earth 7
and annihilating its sinners.
1 tn Heb “drop”; KJV “be faint”; ASV “be feeble”; NAB “fall helpless.”
2 tn Heb “melts” (so NAB).
3 tn Heb “their faces are faces of flames.” Their faces are flushed with fear and embarrassment.
4 tn Heb “the day of the Lord.”
5 tn Heb “[with] cruelty, and fury, and rage of anger.” Three synonyms for “anger” are piled up at the end of the line to emphasize the extraordinary degree of divine anger that will be exhibited in this judgment.
6 tn Heb “making desolate.”
7 tn Or “land” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NLT).