Although the Egyptians try to run away, even the swiftest of them cannot escape from being killed by the Babylonians.

The swift cannot flee, nor the warrior escape: There is a parallelism in these two lines, which Good News Translation retains with “Those who run fast cannot get away; the soldiers cannot escape.” It is possible to combine the two lines as “Even their fastest soldier cannot escape.” New Jerusalem Bible is effective in English:

• “No flight for the swift,
no escape for the strong!”

Revised English Bible shifts to a rhetorical question: “Can the swiftest escape, the bravest save himself?” The expected answer to this question is “No.”

They stumble and fall: The reference is still to the Egyptian soldiers.

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Jeremiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2003. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .