Translations
F.O.G.MPrimary
F.O.G MessageThe bricks have crumbled, but we will rebuild with dressed stone; the sycamore trees have been felled, but we will replace them with cedars.'
F.O.GSecondary
The F.O.GThe bricks have fallen, but we will rebuild with hewn stone; the sycamores are cut down, but we will replace them with cedars.'
KJV
King James VersionThe bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars.
BSB
Berean Standard Bible“The bricks have fallen, but we will rebuild with finished stone; the sycamores have been felled, but we will replace them with cedars.”
Footnotes
This is the anthem of defiant self-reliance — Israel acknowledges disaster but vows to overcome it through ingenuity and ambition, with no word of repentance. Bricks are common, cheap, and fragile; hewn stone (*gazit*, גָּזִית) is costly, permanent, and quarried with great labour. Sycamores (*shiqmim*, שִׁקְמִים) are the peasant tree, hardy and common; cedars are the timber of palaces and temples. The people are not grieving — they are boasting. Their response to divine chastisement is to build bigger and better, a posture of proud self-sufficiency that will meet the full force of YHWH's unretracted hand (v.12).
