If I go out into the field, look—those killed by the sword! And if I enter the city, look—those sick with famine! For both prophet and priest ply their trade throughout the land and have no knowledge.
For I hear many whispering: “Terror is all around! Denounce him! Let us denounce him!” All my close friends are watching for me to stumble. “Perhaps he can be enticed, and we can prevail against him and take our revenge on him.”
Then I said, “Ah, Lord God, how utterly you have deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, ‘It shall be well with you,’ even while the sword is at the throat!”
Declare in Judah, and proclaim in Jerusalem, and say: Blow the trumpet through the land; shout aloud and say, “Gather together, and let us go into the fortified cities!”
Why do I see them terrified? They have fallen back; their warriors are beaten down and have fled in haste. They do not look back— terror is all around! says the Lord.
They take their tents and their flocks, their curtains and all their goods; they carry off their camels for themselves, and a cry shall go up: “Terror is all around!”
I am going to bring terror upon you, says the Lord God of hosts, from all your neighbors, and you will be scattered, each headlong, with no one to gather the fugitives.
Why do we sit still? Gather together; let us go into the fortified cities and perish there, for the Lord our God has doomed us to perish and has given us poisoned water to drink because we have sinned against the Lord.
You invited my enemies from all around as if for a day of festival; and on the day of the anger of the Lord, no one escaped or survived; those whom I bore and reared, my enemy has destroyed.