With the direst of strokes!
Fare I forth to the field, 18
Lo the slain of the sword!
Or come into the city
Lo anguish of famine!
Yea, prophet and priest go a-begging
In a land they know not.[431]
Some see reflected in these lines the situation after Megiddo, when Egyptian troops may have worked such evils on Judah; but more probably it is the still worse situation after the surrender of Jerusalem to Nebuchadrezzar. There follows, 19-22, another prayer of the people (akin to that following the drought, 7-9) which some take to be later than Jeremiah. The metre is unusual, if indeed it be metre and not rhythmical prose.
[Hast Thou utterly cast off Judah, 19
Loathes Ṣion Thy soul?