If I go out into the field, behold, those slain with the sword! And if I enter the city, behold, those who are sick with famine! Indeed, both the prophet and the priest go about into a land that they do not know.
For I heard the defaming of many, “Terror on every side! Denounce him. Yes, denounce him!” All my familiar friends who watch for my fall, say, “Perhaps he will be enticed so that we can prevail against him, and we will take our revenge on him.”
Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Surely You have greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, ‘You shall have peace,’ whereas the sword reaches the throat.”
Declare in Judah and proclaim in Jerusalem, and say: Blow the trumpet in the land. Cry aloud and say, “Assemble yourselves, and let us go into the fortified cities.”
Why have I seen them dismayed and drawing back? Their mighty ones are beaten down and have taken refuge in flight, and not looking back. Terror is on every side! says the Lord.
Their tents and their flocks they will take away. They will carry away their curtains for themselves, and all their vessels, and their camels; and they will call out to one another, “Terror is on every side!”
Behold, I will bring a fear upon you, says the Lord God of Hosts, from all those who are around you; and each of you will be driven out headlong, and no one will gather together the fugitives.
Why do we sit still? Assemble yourselves, and let us enter the fortified cities and let us perish there. For the Lord our God has doomed us and given us water of gall to drink, because we have sinned against the Lord.
You have invited as to a feast day the terrors all around; in the day of the Lord’s anger no one escaped or survived; those whom I held and raised my enemy destroyed.