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860 B
860 B
Is it not from Yahweh of hosts that peoples labor for fire and all the other nations weary themselves for nothing?
This negative rhetorical question emphasizes the positive answer that it anticipates. The two clauses share similar meanings that the work that people do will not last. The question can be translated as a statement. Alternate translation: "Yahweh is the one who has determined that the things that people work hard to build will be destroyed by fire and result in nothing." (See: rc://en/ta/man/translate/figs-rquestion and rc://en/ta/man/translate/figs-parallelism)
peoples labor for fire
This means that the things that people labor to build are ultimately destined to be fuel for fire. Alternate translation: "peoples labor to build things that will be used as fuel for fire" (See: rc://en/ta/man/translate/figs-explicit)