If I go out into the open country, there are those put to death by the sword! and if I go into the town, there are those who are diseased from need of food! for the prophet and the priest go about in the land and have no knowledge.
For numbers of them say evil secretly in my hearing there is fear on every side: they say, Come, let us give witness against him; all my nearest friends, who are watching for my fall, say, It may be that he will be taken by deceit, and we will get the better of him and give him punishment.
Then said I, Ah, Lord God! your words were not true when you said to this people and to Jerusalem, You will have peace; when the sword has come even to the soul.
Say openly in Judah, give it out in Jerusalem, and say, Let the horn be sounded in the land: crying out in a loud voice, Come together, and let us go into the walled towns.
What have I seen? they are overcome with fear and turned back; their men of war are broken and have gone in flight, not looking back: fear is on every side, says the Lord.
Their tents and their flocks they will take; they will take away for themselves their curtains and all their vessels and their camels: they will give a cry to them, Fear on every side.
See, I will send fear on you, says the Lord, the Lord of armies, from those who are round you on every side; you will be forced out, every man straight before him, and there will be no one to get together the wanderers.
Why are we seated doing nothing? come together, and let us go to the walled towns, and let destruction overtake us there, for the Lord our God has sent destruction on us, and given us bitter water for our drink, because we have done evil against the Lord.
As in the day of a holy meeting you have made fears come round me on every side, and no one got away or was kept safe in the day of the Lord's wrath: those who were folded in my arms, whom I took care of, have been sent to their destruction by my hater.