And they shall destroy cities and walls, mountains and hills, trees of the forests, and grass of the meadows, and their grain: It is not clear what the pronoun they refers to. Good News Bible takes it to be the floods of verse 41, but this clashes with the picture of the destruction advancing as far as Babylon (verse 43), which goes up in dust and smoke. We take the subject of the Latin verb for destroy (which is only implied in the third person plural verb form) to be all the combined agents of destruction mentioned in verse 41 (fire, hail, flying swords, and floods), so the pronoun they may be rendered “all this” or “all these things.” The walls were around the cities for protection. Trees of the forests may be expressed simply as “forests.” Grass of the meadows refers to wide expanses of grass, namely “grasslands.” In this context the Latin word for grain is better rendered “crops” (Good News Bible, Contemporary English Version). An alternative model for this verse is:

• All this will destroy cities with their walls, mountains, hills, forests, grasslands, and crops.

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on 1-2 Esdras. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2019. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.