fear: the alarm or dread that grips a person in the face of danger, the supernatural, or overwhelming power
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled
This is the everyday emotion of fright. It is the jolt the disciples feel when a storm nearly swamps the boat, the panic that empties a crowd, the terror that seizes guards at an empty tomb. The same word names the gentler unease that makes people hold their tongue or hide what they believe when speaking up is dangerous.
In the New Testament this fear most often comes over people when God or his power breaks into ordinary life. Shepherds, worshippers in the temple, and witnesses of healing and judgment are all said to be filled with it. The reaction is awe shot through with dread: a sense that something far larger than oneself is present and not safe to treat lightly.
The writers can also hold this fear up as a problem to be overcome. Perfect love drives it out, and the gospel frees people who were enslaved their whole lives by the dread of death. So the same emotion can be a fitting response to God's nearness in one moment and a chain to be broken in another, depending on what is feared and why.
Nuances
1aterror or fright: the sudden alarm that seizes a person facing danger, death, or the supernatural
reverence: the respect and submission owed to God, and the deference owed to people in authority
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
Alongside raw fright, the New Testament uses this word for a settled posture of respect. It is not panic but the seriousness with which a person treats someone who has a rightful claim on them. Toward God it means living in reverent awareness of him, working out one's salvation with this attitude and pursuing holiness because of it.
The same respect is owed, in a lesser key, to people who hold authority: rulers, masters, husbands. Here the word slides toward what English calls deference or honor. Paul tells believers to give respect to whom respect is owed, and Peter tells servants to treat their masters this way, even harsh ones.
Readers should be careful not to flatten this into cringing terror. The reverence owed to God is meant to coexist with love and confidence, not to compete with them. It is the difference between dreading a tyrant and honoring someone you rightly hold in high regard.
Nuances
2areverence toward God: living with serious, worshipful regard for him
Rom 13:7 (2×)2Co 7:15Eph 6:51Ti 5:20*1Pe 2:181Pe 3:2
3
a cause of fear: a person or thing that makes others afraid, a threat or terror
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
In a few places the word names not the feeling but its source: the thing that instills dread. Paul writes that governing authorities are not a terror to those who do good but to those who do evil, using the word for the menace itself rather than the emotion it produces.
This is a recognized extension of the same root: the object that strikes fear can be called by the name of the fear. The shift is small but real, and a reader who expects only the emotion can misread these lines.
Covers the whole range of fear, including a healthy, reverent fear of God that the New Testament commends rather than condemns.Act 9:312Co 7:1
Can mean proper respect owed to people in authority, so that giving it is the right thing to do, not a weakness.Rom 13:71Pe 2:18
Often names the sudden terror or alarm that seizes people who witness something overwhelming, an event-driven dread rather than a character trait.Mat 28:4Luk 2:9
Both
Both name an inward fearfulness that can hold a believer back, the dread that perfect love is meant to drive out.2Ti 1:71Jn 4:18
Names a settled cowardice or timidity that the New Testament always treats as a fault, the opposite of the courage God supplies. It is never a good thing.2Ti 1:7
Points to the failing inside a person, a shrinking spirit, rather than to the threatening thing outside. Paul sets it against power, love, and a sound mind.2Ti 1:7
ἔκστασιςamazement that throws a person off balance; overlaps with the awe sense but names being beside oneself with astonishment rather than dread
Names fear in the ordinary sense of dread before a danger or a threat: the disciples terrified at a figure on the water, guards shaking at the angel, people afraid to speak openly.Mat 14:26Mat 28:4Jhn 7:13
Carries a settled, ongoing reverence toward God or those in authority, an attitude believers are told to live in; this is a steady disposition, not a momentary jolt.Act 9:312Co 7:11Pe 1:17
Used for the awe that falls on a crowd after a display of God's power, an emotion that can settle and spread through a whole community rather than passing in a moment.Luk 1:65Act 2:43Act 5:11
Both
Both name an overwhelming reaction to a display of God's power, and the two can pile up together: when the paralyzed man walked, the crowd was seized by astonishment and filled with awe at once.Luk 5:26
Names a person being thrown outside their normal state of mind, so overwhelmed by what they have seen that they lose their bearings; the word covers being stunned at a miracle and also the trance in which a vision comes.Mrk 5:42Act 10:10Act 22:17
Describes a reaction so total it leaves people speechless or shaking rather than afraid of a threat; after the empty tomb the women fled because this astonishment had gripped them.Mrk 16:8Act 3:10
εὐλάβειαgodly caution and reverent carefulness; close to the reverence sense but stresses devout circumspection rather than the dread or alarm in fear
Can mean sheer terror or fright at something frightening, with no reverence in view, such as the disciples crying out at what they thought was a ghost.Mat 14:26Act 5:5
Covers ordinary human dread of people and threats, such as fear of the religious leaders or the fear a wrongdoer has of those in authority.Jhn 19:38Rom 13:3
Both
Both name a serious, reverent fear of God that shapes how a believer lives before him.Heb 12:282Co 7:1
Always names a positive, godly carefulness: a devout, careful taking of God seriously, never raw fright. It describes Jesus' own reverent submission to the Father.Heb 5:7
Pairs naturally with awe in worship, describing the right inner posture for approaching God acceptably rather than a reaction to danger.Heb 12:28
φόβος can be reverent awe of God, a virtue believers are told to keep and a fear that purifies, which is the opposite of the cowardice δειλός always names.2Co 7:11Pe 1:17
It also covers the respect owed to people in authority, the honor a ruler or a master is due.Rom 13:7Eph 6:5
Both
Both describe being gripped by fright in the face of danger: the disciples are called cowardly when the storm terrifies them, and the same disciples are seized with fear when they see Jesus walking on the water.Mat 8:26Mat 14:26
δειλός labels the person, not the feeling: it brands someone a coward, a settled failing of nerve rather than a passing emotion.Mat 8:26Mrk 4:40
It is always a fault in the New Testament, tied to weak faith when Jesus rebukes it in the storm and, in Revelation, listed among the sins that shut a person out of the new creation.Mrk 4:40Rev 21:8
It covers plain dread of harm, where the danger is real and still ahead. People keep quiet about Jesus because they are afraid of the leaders, disciples lock the doors for the same reason, whole lifetimes are held in slavery by the fear of dying, and merchants stand at a distance from a burning city.Jhn 7:13Jhn 20:19Heb 2:15Rev 18:10
It can be a settled reverence toward God that shapes how a person lives, something believers are urged to keep rather than a reaction that arrives and passes. The churches walk in it, holiness is completed in it, salvation is worked out in it, and it governs the whole of an exile's conduct.Act 9:312Co 7:1Php 2:121Pe 1:17
It also names the deference owed to people, closer to "respect" than to terror: it is listed among the debts a Christian pays, and it describes how a slave serves a master or a household servant an unfair one.Rom 13:7Eph 6:51Pe 2:18
Because one word has to carry dread, reverence and respect, translators have to decide each time which of the three is meant, and the choice can change the sense of a command: the same word is "terror" for rulers who punish wrongdoing and "reverence" for believers submitting to one another.Rom 13:3Eph 5:21
Both
Both name the awe that overtakes a crowd that has just seen God act through someone. It closes around Peter and his partners at the catch of fish, and it takes hold of everyone who watched the paralyzed man carry his bed home and of the crowd at the widow's son.Luk 5:9Luk 5:26Luk 7:16
Both arrive on people rather than being worked up by them, and both take a whole group at once. One comes upon everyone in the synagogue at Capernaum; the other falls on every soul in Jerusalem as the apostles work signs, and on the whole city of Ephesus.Luk 4:36Act 2:43Act 19:17
In these scenes English Bibles reach for the same words for either one, "awe" and "amazement", so the translation does not tell a reader which of the two is behind it: the crowd at the temple gate is filled with the first, and the crowd around the healed paralytic with the second.Act 3:10Luk 5:26
Both leave people able to speak, and in Luke both spill straight into words about God: one has the synagogue turning to one another over the authority of what they just heard, and the other has the onlookers glorifying God for what they have seen.Luk 4:36Luk 5:26
It always names the jolt of watching something happen that no one present can account for, so it is tied to a single moment and a specific event: a word that drives out an unclean spirit, a catch of fish that nearly sinks the boats, a man lame from birth walking into the temple courts.Luk 4:36Luk 5:9Act 3:10
Nothing in it looks forward to harm. The people it falls on are not in danger and are not braced for anything; they are simply knocked off balance by what has already taken place in front of them.Luk 4:36Act 3:10
It is never something a person is told to have or to live in. It only ever gets reported, as the reaction of onlookers in a narrative, and never becomes a settled attitude someone carries into daily conduct.Luk 5:9Luk 4:36
It names a sudden alarm at something definite and present: a figure walking on the water, an angel standing there in the night, the shaking of the ground at the tomb. It seizes people all at once, which anxious care never does.Mat 14:26Mat 28:4Luk 2:9Luk 1:12
It can be a right and even commanded response, the reverence owed to God and the respect owed to people in authority. The early church grew while walking in it, believers are told to live out their time in it, and it is listed among the things due to those who govern.Act 9:311Pe 1:17Rom 13:7Eph 6:5
It can point outward at the thing that frightens, not the feeling inside. Rulers are called a "terror" to those who do wrong, and Peter tells his readers not to be afraid of what other people are afraid of.Rom 13:31Pe 3:14
It makes people hide, go quiet, or keep their distance. Believers speak secretly, a follower of Jesus keeps his loyalty hidden, the disciples lock the doors, and a whole region asks Jesus to leave.Jhn 7:13Jhn 19:38Jhn 20:19Luk 8:37
Both
Both name an unsettled inward state directed at what could still harm a person, and both are treated as something a believer should be relieved of rather than left holding: worry is to be thrown onto God, and the fear that expects punishment is driven out by love.1Pe 5:71Jn 4:18
Both can take hold of a person so completely that they cannot act as they should. In the same chapter of Luke, one weighs hearts down so that the day catches people unready, and the other leaves people fainting at what is coming on the world.Luk 21:34Luk 21:26
It is a load a person carries over time, not a reaction to one moment. In the parable of the sower it is the ongoing "cares" of ordinary life that slowly choke the growing seed, working on a person season after season until nothing comes to maturity.Mat 13:22Mrk 4:19Luk 8:14
It usually has no single object. It is worry about getting by in general, about money and about what tomorrow may bring, which is why it sits alongside wealth and the pleasures of life rather than alongside any particular danger.Mat 13:22Luk 21:34
It can be the weight of responsibility a person carries for other people and how they are doing, a caretaker's daily burden rather than any threat to himself. Paul lists it as the pressure that comes on him every day for all the churches.2Co 11:28
Names fear as a thing in itself, an emotion or dread that can seize people and fall on a crowd, rather than an action someone takes.Luk 1:12Luk 1:65Act 2:43Act 5:5
Can name the very thing that is feared or the reverence owed to someone, the object or ground of fear, not just the feeling.Rom 13:71Pe 3:2
Both
Both run the full range from raw terror to reverent awe, and the same scene often pairs them: the gripping emotion and the reaction it provokes.Mrk 4:41Luk 2:9
Both describe a fear that perfect love drives out and that has to do with punishment, the dread that confidence before God removes.1Jn 4:18
Names the act of being afraid as something a person does, so it is the word used to tell someone to stop doing it: the recurring command "do not be afraid."Mat 1:20Luk 1:30Luk 12:32
Covers reverent fearing directed at God as an ongoing way of life, the verb of worshipful awe.Luk 1:50Luk 23:40
phobos in the other biblical languages
יִרְאָהHebrew“fear”the standard Hebrew word for fear and the fear of the LORD, covering the same span from terror to reverence that this word does
Names the gripping terror that seizes people in the face of the supernatural or the miraculous: the disciples crying out at a figure on the water, guards shaking at the angel, the shepherds startled by heavenly glory.Mat 14:26Mat 28:4Luk 2:9
Marks the dread of human authority and of hostile people: keeping quiet for fear of the religious leaders, the deference owed to rulers who carry power, slaves obeying masters.Jhn 7:13Rom 13:3Eph 6:5
Is set in explicit tension with love and salvation: perfect love drives out this fear because it carries the torment of expecting punishment, and it can be the slavery Christ frees believers from.1Jn 4:18Rom 8:15Heb 2:15
Both
Both name reverent fear of God as the proper human posture before him, the awe that worship and obedience flow from.Pro 1:7Act 9:31
Both also name ordinary dread and fright, the alarm a person feels at danger or threat with no reverent overtone at all.Jon 1:10Luk 21:26
Is the wisdom tradition's foundation: the fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge and of wisdom, the starting point from which right understanding grows.Pro 1:7Pro 9:10Psa 111:10
Functions as a whole way of life with concrete rewards and ethics: it prolongs days, turns a person from evil, and is named as the path of riches, honor, and life.Pro 10:27Pro 16:6Pro 22:4
Serves as a near-synonym for true religion and covenant loyalty itself, the inward devotion God desires rather than mere outward ritual or lip service.Isa 29:13Job 28:282Ch 19:9
פַּחַדHebrew“dread”Hebrew dread, the sudden cold terror of an enemy or of God's judgment; narrower than this word, weighted toward alarm rather than reverence
Names the reverence and awe that mark how believers live before God, a settled posture rather than a passing fright.2Co 7:1Eph 5:211Pe 1:17
Covers everyday alarm at something startling, like the disciples crying out when they saw a figure on the water.Mat 14:26Luk 2:9
Stands for fear that mature love drives out, the opposite of the freedom God gives, not a healthy response to keep.Rom 8:151Jn 4:18
Both
Both name dread of God himself, the kind that should check a person from wrongdoing and is missing in those who have no regard for him.Rom 3:18Psa 36:1
Both name the bodily terror that grips a person at a frightening sight, leaving them shaking.Mat 28:4Job 4:14
Reaches to the reverent end of the range that terror never touches: the awe a believer owes God, which is honor and worship rather than dread.Act 9:312Co 7:11Pe 1:17
Stretches down to ordinary respect and deference owed to people in authority, a social sense the Hebrew word does not carry.Rom 13:7Eph 6:51Pe 2:18
Both
At its harshest, the broad Greek word means exactly what the Hebrew word always means: raw terror that seizes a person and makes them tremble. This is the overlap where Greek translators of the Old Testament regularly reached for "phobos" to carry the Hebrew "terror."Job 13:21Mat 28:4
Both name the specific dread of death that falls on a person and holds them captive.Psa 88:15Heb 2:15
Names an overwhelming dread that physically overpowers a person, falling on them like a weight and draining their strength; it never softens into mere caution or respect.Gen 15:12Exo 15:16Psa 55:4
Often the terror God sends ahead as a weapon, routing enemies before Israel so they lose their nerve to fight.Exo 23:27Jos 2:9
Covers the ordinary fear of hostile people that makes someone hide or keep quiet: no one spoke openly about Jesus, Joseph kept his loyalty secret, and the disciples locked the doors. The Hebrew word never describes a person managing a risk they might yet survive.Jhn 7:13Jhn 19:38Jhn 20:19
Can sit in the same moment as joy and praise, so one event produces both at once: the women leave the tomb with fear and great gladness, and crowds are gripped with fear and then start glorifying God.Mat 28:8Luk 5:26Luk 7:16
Names a trembling seriousness that believers are told to carry into their own work and obedience, something asked of the faithful rather than something inflicted on the doomed.1Co 2:3Php 2:122Co 7:15
Can serve to correct and rescue people while there is still time: a public rebuke so that others take warning, and mercy shown with fear to someone being pulled out of the fire.1Ti 5:20Jud 1:23
Both
Both name a dread that arrives from outside and takes hold of the body of whoever is standing there: horrors close in on the wicked man from every side, and great fear falls on the people who watch the two witnesses rise.Job 18:11Rev 11:11
Both name the horror that grips onlookers when a great trading city collapses, which is why English versions reach for "terror" or "fear" in either scene: the merchant nations are appalled at what Tyre has become, and the merchants of Babylon stand far off in fear of her burning.Ezk 27:36Rev 18:10
Both can name the dread of ruin closing in that leaves a person without footing: the comfortable are swept away by horrors in an instant, and people faint at what they see coming on the world.Psa 73:19Luk 21:26
Comes in the plural and behaves like a hunting pack rather than a feeling: horrors startle the wicked man from every side and chase him at his heels, they are turned loose on Job, and they overtake their target like rising water.Job 18:11Job 30:15Job 27:20
Stands right next to death and total disappearance, so it carries the end itself and not only the dread beforehand: death is "the king of terrors", the prosperous are swept away in a moment, and a nation that meets this at evening is gone before morning.Job 18:14Psa 73:19Isa 17:14
Can be what a ruined city or ruler becomes in the eyes of everyone watching, a verdict pronounced on them rather than an emotion inside anyone: God says he will make Tyre a horror, and both the city and its king are told they have become a horror and will exist no more.Ezk 26:21Ezk 27:36Ezk 28:19
Belongs to the dark, where those who do their work at night keep company with these horrors as if with friends.Job 24:17
Reaches all the way to reverent awe before God, the settled respect that shapes worship and obedience rather than any loss of nerve.Act 9:312Co 7:1Eph 5:211Pe 1:17
Covers the ordinary respect owed to people in positions of authority, something believers are told to give rather than something that overpowers them.Rom 13:7Eph 6:51Pe 2:18
Names a quiet, calculating fear of what other people might do, the kind that keeps someone silent or behind locked doors while leaving him fully able to act.Jhn 7:13Jhn 19:38Jhn 20:19
Names fear as a lasting inner condition a person can be set free from, so it becomes something to be healed rather than a single moment of collapse.Rom 8:15Heb 2:151Jn 4:18
Also carries the sudden jolt of fright at something a person cannot explain, and then the hush that settles on a crowd once it is clear God has acted.Mat 14:26Luk 1:12Luk 5:26Act 2:43
Both
Both name fear that arrives from outside a person and takes away the ability to stand: soldiers dismayed and pulling back in Jeremiah, and guards who shake and drop like dead men at the tomb.Jer 46:5Mat 28:4
Both can describe the dread that overwhelming power lays on whoever has to face it, whether animals set under human beings or people watching the world shaken.Gen 9:2Luk 21:26
In both, God himself is the one who brings the fear about: he snaps the bows of the strong in Hannah's song, and he raises his two witnesses so that those watching are seized.1Sa 2:4Rev 11:11
Names dread that a stronger party imposes on a weaker one so that the weaker one stops resisting, as when every animal is placed under the dread of human beings.Gen 9:2
Describes fighting strength visibly giving way, warriors whose bows snap and who turn back from the battle, so the word points at the collapse itself and not only at a feeling inside someone.1Sa 2:4Jer 46:5
Its absence is what marks a creature as unconquerable: the sea beast of Job is made with none of it in him.Job 41:33
Across all four of its verses it never means reverence, respect, or worship, and no one is ever told to have it toward God; it stays confined to nerve breaking before superior force.Gen 9:2Jer 46:5
Names the fear a person actually feels: the jolt of a startled witness who cries out or freezes at something he cannot explain.Mat 14:26Mrk 4:41Luk 1:12
Can be a healthy thing: a reverence toward God that shapes how believers treat each other and how they live out their days.2Co 7:1Eph 5:211Pe 1:17
Stretches down to ordinary respect owed to people in authority, where the right English word is closer to "respect" than to "terror".Rom 13:7Eph 6:51Pe 2:18
Names a condition a person can be rescued from, a lifelong bondage that maturing love drives out.Rom 8:15Heb 2:151Jn 4:18
Describes the private fear that makes people keep quiet, meet behind locked doors, or follow Jesus in secret.Jhn 7:13Jhn 19:38Jhn 20:19
Both
Both name the dread that a display of overwhelming power produces in the people who witness it, so the fear is credited to the strong party as much as to those who feel it.Ezk 32:24Mat 28:4Rev 18:10
Both describe fear settling on a whole population rather than one person's private mood, spreading through a city or a region.Ezk 26:17Luk 1:65Act 19:17
Both stand close to death and judgment, naming what falls on onlookers when God strikes or raises someone in plain sight.Ezk 32:32Rev 11:11Act 5:11
Almost always appears as somebody's terror, "their terror" or "my terror", naming it as a weapon a power owns and deals out rather than a feeling anyone reports having.Ezk 32:26Ezk 32:32Ezk 26:17
Belongs to soldiers and armed strength, and it dies with them: the warriors who once frightened everyone go down to the grave carrying that terror and their shame.Ezk 32:27Ezk 32:30
Locked to one setting and nearly one sentence, the funeral songs over fallen empires that say they once spread their terror "in the land of the living".Ezk 32:23Ezk 32:25
Never carries any shade of reverence or respect. It is menace and nothing else, which is why spreading it counts as a charge against the nations who did.Ezk 32:24Ezk 32:25
Covers reverent awe before God, a fear that draws people toward worship and careful obedience rather than driving them away. The Hebrew word never carries this warm sense.Act 9:312Co 7:11Pe 1:17
Names ordinary respect owed inside everyday relationships, what a citizen owes a ruler or a household servant owes a master. Here it is closer to "respect" than to "terror".Rom 13:7Eph 6:51Pe 2:18
Names a settled inner condition a person lives under and can be set free from, so it can be weighed against love and against confidence.Rom 8:15Heb 2:151Jn 4:18
Covers social fear of what other people will do, the quiet pressure that makes followers keep silent, meet behind locked doors, or hide their loyalty.Jhn 7:13Jhn 19:38Jhn 20:19
Both
Both name genuine dread, the kind that grips people when danger closes in and there is nowhere safe left to go.Mat 14:26Luk 21:26Jer 6:25
Both describe fear that runs through a whole crowd or army at once and visibly changes what everyone does, so people flee, keep their distance, or refuse to step outside.Rev 18:10Jer 46:5
English Bibles reach for the same handful of words for both, usually "fear", "terror", or "dread", which hides how much wider the Greek word ranges.Luk 8:37Psa 31:13
Belongs to the battlefield and the besieged city. It is the panic of people with an enemy sword closing in and soldiers running without looking back.Jer 6:25Jer 46:5Isa 31:9
Arrives almost always inside one fixed phrase, "terror on every side", so the word carries the picture of being surrounded with no gap to escape through, not fear in general.Psa 31:13Jer 20:10Lam 2:22
Can name the thing dreaded rather than the feeling, so a person is handed over to it or is turned into it for everyone who knows him.Jer 20:4Jer 49:29
Names the fright a person actually feels in the moment: the disciples cry out when they think a ghost is walking on the water, Zechariah is gripped at the altar, the women leave the tomb shaking, and people are held in lifelong slavery by the fear of dying.Mat 14:26Luk 1:12Mat 28:8Heb 2:15
Explains why people act cautiously around other people: no one speaks openly about Jesus, Joseph follows him in secret, and the disciples meet behind locked doors, all because of what the authorities might do.Jhn 7:13Jhn 19:38Jhn 20:19
Describes a settled, worshipful way of living before God rather than one frightening episode: believers work out their salvation this way, conduct themselves this way for the whole time they live as strangers, and finish the work of holiness in it.Php 2:121Pe 1:172Co 7:1
Names something a person can be freed from, since love brought to maturity drives it out and it has to do with punishment.1Jn 4:18
Both
Both cover the honor owed upward to someone in authority, so either can be rendered "respect" as readily as "fear": God asks where the honor due a father and master has gone, and household slaves are told to serve their earthly masters this way.Mal 1:6Eph 6:5
Either word can name the party who causes the fear rather than the emotion: Isaiah tells Judah to let the LORD of hosts himself be their dread, the surrounding kings bring gifts to the one who is to be feared, and Paul says rulers are no menace to people who do good.Isa 8:13Psa 76:11Rom 13:3
Both describe dread spreading through a whole community when God's power is on display: the dread of Israel is laid on every place they walk into, and great fear comes over the entire church and everyone who hears what happened to Ananias.Deu 11:25Act 5:11
Names the mighty acts themselves rather than any feeling: the great terrors by which God brought Israel out of Egypt are deeds Moses did where all Israel could watch.Deu 4:34Deu 26:8Deu 34:12Jer 32:21
Is something God hands over or sets in place: the dread of humanity is put on every animal after the flood, and the psalmist asks God to set dread on the nations so they will remember they are only human.Gen 9:2Psa 9:20
Names the feeling itself, the fear that seizes people and shows in what they do: they cry out, they shake, they fall back, they keep quiet.Mat 14:26Luk 1:12Act 2:43Rev 11:11
Can be a good and even commanded posture: a reverent awe of God that steadies the way believers live rather than a disaster they are bracing for.Act 9:312Co 7:11Pe 1:17
Stretches down to ordinary respect owed inside human relationships, where no dread of harm is in view at all and the sense is closer to taking someone seriously.Rom 13:7Eph 6:51Pe 2:18
Names a fear the New Testament sets out to remove, the anxious dread of punishment and of death that being loved and adopted by God drives out.1Jn 4:18Rom 8:15Heb 2:15
Both
Both can name the thing or person that strikes dread rather than the dread itself. Paul says rulers are no "terror" to those who do right, and Jeremiah begs God not to become a "terror" to him.Rom 13:3Jer 17:17
Both name the dread that comes on people from outside and leaves them shaken: Moab is left a horror that neighbouring nations recoil from, and the guards at the tomb shake and go rigid.Jer 48:39Mat 28:4
Both name the dread that a secure life is promised freedom from: the restored city is told terror will not come near it, and John says love brought to completion throws fear out.Isa 54:141Jn 4:18
Most often names the ruin itself, the collapse that overtakes someone, so it is an event that happens rather than an emotion anyone feels. English versions render it "destruction" here, not "fear".Pro 10:14Pro 18:7Pro 10:15
In Proverbs it is the standard word for how things end up for the wrongdoer: the very order that shelters the honest person is what brings the crooked one down, and careless talk earns the same result.Pro 10:29Pro 21:15Pro 13:3
Reaches past individuals to a kingdom and its defenses, naming walls and strongholds left in rubble, or a ruler undone because the people who upheld him are gone.Psa 89:40Pro 14:28
What scholars say about phobos
Standard lexica (BDAG, s.v. φόβος) and the theological dictionaries (TDNT 9:189-219, Balz/Wanke; EDNT 3:429-432) divide the New Testament usage into the affective sense of fright or alarm, an awe before manifestations of divine power that shades into worship, and the relational sense of reverence toward God and deference toward human authorities (rulers, masters, husbands). The phrase translating the Hebrew construct fear of the LORD (yir'at YHWH) stands behind much of the reverential usage. A small number of texts use the term concretely for the object that causes fear (Rom 13:3). The continuity with the Septuagint, where φόβος regularly renders yir'ah and pachad, anchors the reverential range against any purely Hellenistic reading. The verb φοβέομαι and adjective φοβερός share the range but are formally distinct lexemes treated in their own entries.
Sources
BDAG, s.v. φόβοςlexicon
Balz and Wanke, "φόβος," TDNT 9:189-219dictionary
Balz, "φόβος," EDNT 3:429-432dictionary
Louw and Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, domains 25.251-25.255lexicon