Paragraph 9:7–11

9:7a

horses prepared for battle: A horse is a large, four-legged animal that weighs 500 kilograms (1100 pounds) or more. They are about 1.5 meters (5 feet) high at the back. At that time, some kinds of soldiers rode horses into battle. Some of these soldiers put armor over their horses’ faces, chests, backs, rumps, and legs to protect them. At that time the armor was made of overlapping, flat ovals of metal. The metal ovals were attached to a leather undergarment. An example of this armor is pictured below.

Other ways to translate this phrase are:

horses ready for battle (Contemporary English Version)
-or-
horses armoured for battle (New Jerusalem Bible)

In some languages people are not familiar with horses or their armor. If that is true in your language, you may want to:

• Use a descriptive phrase. For example:

⌊large⌋ riding animals ready for war
-or-

⌊large⌋ riding animals with protective armor/clothing for fighting

• Use the major language word. If people are not familiar with this word, explain it in a footnote. For example:

A horse is a large animal that one kind of soldier rode into battle. Such a soldier would put armor over his horse’s face, chest, back, rump, and legs to protect it. The locusts looked like the war horse without the rider.

See how you translated the word horse in 6:2.

9:7b

something like crowns of gold: These things on the heads of the locusts looked like crowns. See how you translated the phrase “golden crowns” in 4:4.

their: The pronoun their refers to the locusts.

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