Lamentations 4:5

ה (He) Those who once feasted on delicacies ¹  are now starving to death ²  in the streets. Those who grew up ³  wearing expensive clothes ⁴  are now dying ⁵  amid garbage. ⁶ 

Those who once ate delicacies are destitute in the streets. Those nurtured in purple now lie on ash heaps.

Those who ate delicacies Are desolate in the streets; Those reared in purple Embrace ash pits.

The people who once ate only the richest foods now beg in the streets for anything they can get. Those who once lived in palaces now search the garbage pits for food.

People used to the finest cuisine forage for food in the streets. People used to the latest in fashions pick through the trash for something to wear.

Those who were used to feasting on delicate food are wasted in the streets: those who as children were dressed in purple are stretched out on the dust.

Those who feasted on delicacies perish in the streets; those who were brought up in purple cling to ash heaps.

Those who ate delicacies Are desolate in the streets; Those who were brought up in scarlet Embrace ash heaps.

ה (He) Those who once feasted on delicacies ¹  are now starving to death ²  in the streets. Those who grew up ³  wearing expensive clothes ⁴  are now dying ⁵  amid garbage. ⁶ 

¹ tn Heb “eaters of delicacies.” An alternate English gloss would be “connoisseurs of fine foods.”

² tn Heb “are desolate.”

³ tn Heb “were reared.”

⁴ tn Heb “in purple.” The term תוֹלָע (tola’, “purple”) is a figurative description of expensive clothing: it is a metonymy of association: the color of the dyed clothes (= purple) stands for the clothes themselves.

⁵ tn Heb “embrace garbage.” One may also translate “rummage through” (cf. NCV “pick through trash piles”; TEV “pawing through refuse”; NLT “search the garbage pits.”

⁶ tn The Hebrew word אַשְׁפַּתּוֹת (’ashpatot) can also mean “ash heaps.” Though not used as a combination elsewhere, to “embrace ash heaps” might also envision a state of mourning or even dead bodies lying on the ash heaps.