A quick look at the Revised Standard Version rendering of these two verses immediately reveals the repetition found in the Hebrew text. Together the verses serve to introduce the message of verses 5b-7, and for that reason it is possible (as with Good News Translation and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch) to express verses 4-5 more concisely: “The following is what the Lord has said concerning Israel and Judah…” (Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch). Good News Translation renders verse 4 as “The LORD says to the people of Israel and Judah” and allows this to include Thus says the LORD of verse 5. However, see the notes on this expression at 2.2.
Many translators will find it helpful to render Israel and Judah as “people of Israel and Judah,” as in Good News Translation.
We have heard is the form of the Hebrew text, and the one proposed by Hebrew Old Testament Text Project. Their reasoning is that at the beginning of the statement attributed to God (Thus says the LORD …), there may be a quotation reflecting what the people have said, and this is the reason for the pronoun We. New English Bible follows the Septuagint (“You shall hear”), while Good News Translation prefers the rendering “I” (in line with “I see” in verse 6). But clearly it is the LORD who is speaking, so translators should be sure that is clear regardless of whether they use “we” or “I.”
A cry of panic: Cry is more literally “voice,” though the Hebrew word is capable of a broad range of meaning. Panic translates a noun that occurs only here in Jeremiah. Revised Standard Version also renders it as “panic” in 1Sam 14.15, but as “trembling” in Isa 21.4. The noun has as its primary meaning “trembling” or “fear.”
Terror comes from a verb that means “to be afraid,” “tremble.” Elsewhere the noun is used in 48.43-44; 49.5.
In some languages rather than hearing a cry of panic, of terror, it would be more natural to say “a voice crying out in panic and terror” or “the voice of someone [or, voices of people] crying out in panic and fear.”
And no peace: For peace see 6.14. To make and no peace fit the sentence, Good News Translation has “a cry of fear and not of peace.” Translators can also use a separate sentence such as “There is no sound of peace to be heard” or “We [or, I] have not heard the sounds of peace.”
Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Jeremiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2003. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .