Translations
F.O.G.MPrimary
F.O.G MessageTheir leaders dispatch their servants to find water; they come to the cisterns — and find nothing. They return with empty jars. Disgraced and humiliated, they cover their heads in despair.
F.O.GSecondary
The F.O.GTheir nobles send their young men for water; they come to the cisterns and find no water; they return with their vessels empty. They are ashamed and confounded, covering their heads.
KJV
King James VersionAnd their nobles have sent their little ones to the waters: they came to the pits, and found no water; they returned with their vessels empty; they were ashamed and confounded, and covered their heads.
BSB
Berean Standard BibleThe nobles send their servants for water; they go to the cisterns, but find no water; their jars return empty. They are ashamed and humiliated; they cover their heads.
Footnotes
The word *ṣə'îrêhem* — 'their young men' or 'their servants' (literally 'their little ones') — highlights the social inversion at work: even the powerful must send their dependants on the desperate errand of water-carrying, a servant's task. Covering the head (*ḥāpû rō'šām*) was an ANE gesture of shame and grief (cf. 2 Sam. 15:30; Est. 6:12). The detail that the vessels return empty makes the humiliation public and material. FOG preserves the social hierarchy; FOG Message foregrounds the emotional devastation of public shame.