Their goods shall be plundered, and their houses laid waste: the material goods on which the people relied will be taken away from them. In languages which do not use the passive, translators may say “Their enemies will take away all their possessions, and will destroy their houses.”

The last part of the verse gives in traditional language a picture of people being disappointed in their hope for things which they would have expected to enjoy in the normal course of events: Though they build houses, they shall not inhabit them; though they plant vineyards, they shall not drink wine from them. Good News Translation expresses the meaning more simply by doing away with the subordinate clauses and saying “They will never live in the houses they are building or drink wine from the vineyards they are planting.” The same picture is used to describe punishment in Deuteronomy 28.30; Amos 5.11; Micah 6.15. Vineyards may be rendered as “places for growing grapevines” or “gardens where grapevines are grown.” See Habakkuk 3.17 for further comments on the translation of “grapevines.”

Quoted with permission from Clark, David J. & Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on the Book of Zephaniah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1989. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .