Lamentations 2:12

ל (Lamed) Children ¹  say to their mothers, ²  “Where are food and drink?” ³  They faint ⁴  like a wounded warrior in the city squares. They die slowly ⁵  in their mothers’ arms. ⁶ 

They say to their mothers, "Where is bread and wine?" as they faint like wounded men in the streets of the city, as their lives ebb away in their mothers’ arms.

They say to their mothers, "Where is grain and wine?" As they faint like a wounded man In the streets of the city, As their life is poured out On their mothers’ bosom.

"Mama, we want food," they cry, and then collapse in their mothers’ arms. Their lives ebb away like the life of a warrior wounded in battle.

Calling to their mothers, "I'm hungry! I'm thirsty!" then fainting like dying soldiers in the streets, breathing their last in their mothers' laps.

They say to their mothers, Where is grain and wine? when they are falling like the wounded in the open squares of the town, when their life is drained out on their mother’s breast.

They cry to their mothers, "Where is bread and wine?" as they faint like the wounded in the streets of the city, as their life is poured out on their mothers’ bosom.

They say to their mothers, "Where is grain and wine?" As they swoon like the wounded In the streets of the city, As their life is poured out In their mothers’ bosom.

ל (Lamed) Children ¹  say to their mothers, ²  “Where are food and drink?” ³  They faint ⁴  like a wounded warrior in the city squares. They die slowly ⁵  in their mothers’ arms. ⁶ 

¹ tn Heb “they”; the referent has been specified in the translation for clarity.

² tn Heb “to their mother,” understood as a collective singular.

³ tn Heb “Where is bread and wine?” The terms “bread” and “wine” are synecdoches of specific (= bread, wine) for general (= food, drink).

⁴ tn Heb “as they faint” or “when they faint.”

⁵ tn Heb “as their life is poured out.” The term בְּהִשְׁתַּפֵּךְ (bÿhishtappekh), Hitpael infinitive construct + the preposition בּ (bet), from שָׁפַךְ (shafakh, “to pour out”) may be rendered “as they expire” (BDB 1050 s.v. שָׁפַךְ), referring to the process of dying. Note the repetition of the word “pour out” with various direct objects in this poem at 2:4, 11, 12, and 19.

⁶ tn Heb “chest, lap.”