2 Kings 7:4

7:4 If we go into the city, we’ll die of starvation, ¹  and if we stay here we’ll die! So come on, let’s defect ²  to the Syrian camp! If they spare us, ³  we’ll live; if they kill us – well, we were going to die anyway.” ⁴ 

Jeremiah 8:14

Jeremiah Laments over the Coming Destruction

8:14 The people say, ⁵ 

“Why are we just sitting here?

Let us gather together inside the fortified cities. ⁶ 

Let us at least die there fighting, ⁷ 

since the Lord our God has condemned us to die.

He has condemned us to drink the poison waters of judgment ⁸ 

because we have sinned against him. ⁹ 

Jeremiah 27:13

27:13 There is no reason why you and your people should die in war ¹⁰  or from starvation or disease! ¹¹  That’s what the Lord says will happen to any nation ¹²  that will not be subject to the king of Babylon.

¹ tn Heb “If we say, ‘We will enter the city,’ the famine is in the city and we will die there.”

² tn Heb “fall.”

³ tn Heb “keep us alive.”

⁴ tn Heb “we will die.” The paraphrastic translation attempts to bring out the logical force of their reasoning.

⁵ tn The words “The people say” are not in the text but are implicit in the shift of speakers between vv. 4-13 and vv. 14-16. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

⁶ tn Heb “Gather together and let us enter into the fortified cities.”

⁷ tn Heb “Let us die there.” The words “at least” and “fighting” are intended to bring out the contrast of passive surrender to death in the open country and active resistance to the death implicit in the context.

⁸ tn The words “of judgment” are not in the text but are intended to show that “poison water” is not literal but figurative of judgment at the hands of God through the agency of the enemy mentioned in v. 16.

⁹ tn Heb “against the Lord.” The switch is for the sake of smoothness in English.

¹⁰ tn Heb “with/by the sword.”

¹¹ tn Heb “Why should you and your people die…?” The rhetorical question expects the answer made explicit in the translation, “There is no reason!”

¹² tn Heb “…disease according to what the Lord spoke concerning the nation that…”