in the time of their evil.
The Masoretic Text reads “for [beʿad] their evil,” but several Hebrew
manuscripts a well as four ancient versions read “in the time of [beʿet]”.
The scribal error was probably triggered by the use of beʿad earlier in the
verse (“do not pray for this people”). “Evil” in this phrase suggests
“disaster” but is worth retaining as “evil” because of the pointed reiteration
of the term as the prophecy continues. (Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible,
3 vols. [New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2019], 2:899)
