For thus says the Lord GOD: For renders the Hebrew particle ki as a logical connector (so also New International Version, King James Version / New King James Version, New American Standard Bible), but it is difficult to know what function it has here. Other translations omit it as unnecessary (so Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version, New Century Version, Revised English Bible, New Jerusalem Bible, New American Bible), or they use a different connector, such as “Now” (New Living Translation), “And” (Moffatt), or “And now” (Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch). However, the best approach is to take it as an emphatic particle and render it as “Yes,” “Indeed,” “For sure,” or “Assuredly” (New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh). For thus says the Lord GOD, see Ezek 14.4.

How much more when I send upon Jerusalem my four sore acts of judgment, sword, famine, evil beasts, and pestilence…!: The Hebrew word rendered How much more continues the emphasis indicated by the initial particle, but many translations omit it for the sake of style (so Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version, New Jerusalem Bible). However, it builds on the earlier general statements to bring God’s argument to a climax in reference to Jerusalem. The argument runs like this. If any nation sins and God decides to punish it, the only people who might escape death are the most virtuous people that ever lived. If that applies to those nations where those great people lived (it is significant that all three of the men named were non-Israelites who lived outside the land of Israel), the people of Jerusalem will have even less chance of escaping God’s punishment because they have sinned much more, and there are no great men like Noah, Danel and Job left in Jerusalem. As a result, no one will survive when God punishes Jerusalem. New Century Version gets the sense right by beginning this sentence with “My plans for Jerusalem are much worse…,” but New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh also captures the flow of the passage with “How much less [should any escape] now that I have let loose against Jerusalem all four of My terrible punishments…!” Sword, famine, evil beasts, and pestilence are God’s four punishments described in verses 13-20 (see the comments there). Here they are called my four sore acts of judgment. The Hebrew word rendered sore is normally translated “evil,” “bad,” or “wicked” (see, for example, 13.22), but that sense does not fit in reference to an action of God. Here it describes the things that will happen to the people of Jerusalem as very harmful, so it may be rendered “terrible” (New Century Version, Revised English Bible, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh) or “severe” (New King James Version , New American Standard Bible).

The result of God’s punishments is to cut off from it man and beast, that is, to destroy all the people and the animals in Jerusalem. See the comments on verse 13.

A model for this verse is:

• Assuredly this is what the Lord Yahweh says: “What I will do to Jerusalem is much worse than that when I send my four terrible punishments of warfare, starvation, wild animals and disease to kill the people and the animals.

Quoted with permission from Gross, Carl & Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Ezekiel. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .