Proverbs 14:13 New English Translation

¹³Even in laughter the heart may ache,^[a]
and the end^[b] of joy may be^[c] grief.

Proverbs 14:13 sn No joy is completely free of grief. There is a joy that is superficial and there is underlying pain that will remain after the joy is gone.
Proverbs 14:13 tc Heb “and its end, joy, is grief.” The suffix may be regarded as an Aramaism, a proleptic suffix referring to “joy.” Or it may be considered a case of wrong word division, moving the ה (he) to read אַחֲרִית הַשִּׂמְחָה (ʾakharit hassimkhah, “after the joy [may be] grief”) rather than אַחֲרִיתָהּ שִׂמְחָה (ʾakharitah simkhah, “after it, joy, grief”).
Proverbs 14:13 tn The phrase “may be” is not in the Hebrew but is supplied from the parallelism, which features an imperfect of possibility.

New English Translation (NET)