Translations
F.O.G.MPrimary
F.O.G Messageand poverty will ambush you like a drifting vagabond, and scarcity will arrive like an armed warrior.
F.O.GSecondary
The F.O.Gand your poverty will come upon you like a wanderer, and your want like a man armed with a shield.
KJV
King James VersionSo shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth; and thy want as an armed man.
BSB
Berean Standard Bibleand poverty will come upon you like a robber, and need like a bandit.
Footnotes
This closing couplet is nearly identical to Prov. 6:11, and the repetition is itself instructive — laziness leads to the same ruin, always. *Mithhalekh* ('one who walks about/a wanderer/vagabond') implies poverty that drifts in quietly and without announcement — not a dramatic raid but a slow, inexorable arrival that was nonetheless avoidable. *Ish magen* ('a man of a shield') is unusual: *magen* ordinarily means 'shield,' but in context it likely describes a fully armed warrior against whom resistance is futile. The pairing creates a double image of ruin: poverty as a quiet drifter who nevertheless arrives with military force. FOG preserves *mithhalekh* as 'wanderer' and *magen* as 'shield'; FOG Message opts for 'vagabond' and 'armed warrior' to make both the creeping drift and its sudden, overwhelming force viscerally present.