The leaders then added, ¹  “Let them live.” So they became ²  woodcutters and water carriers for the whole community, as the leaders had decided. ³ 

Now you are condemned to perpetual servitude as woodcutters and water carriers for the house of my God.” ¹ 

and that day made them woodcutters and water carriers for the community and for the altar of the Lord at the divinely chosen site. (They continue in that capacity to this very day.) ¹ 

The evergreens also rejoice over your demise, ¹  as do the cedars of Lebanon, singing, ²  ‘Since you fell asleep, ³  no woodsman comes up to chop us down!’ ⁴ 

They invade like lumberjacks swinging their axes in a thick forest. ¹ 

Egypt will run away, hissing like a snake, ¹  as the enemy comes marching up in force. They will come against her with axes as if they were woodsmen chopping down trees.

your infants, your wives, and the ¹  foreigners living in your encampment, those who chop wood and those who carry water –

Send me cedars, evergreens, and algum ¹  trees from Lebanon, for I know your servants are adept ²  at cutting down trees in Lebanon. My servants will work with your servants

Look, I will pay your servants who cut the timber 20,000 kors ¹  of ground wheat, 20,000 kors of barley, 120,000 gallons ²  of wine, and 120,000 gallons of olive oil.”

So now order some cedars of Lebanon to be cut for me. My servants will work with your servants. I will pay your servants whatever you say is appropriate, for you know that we have no one among us who knows how to cut down trees like the Sidonians.”