Jeremiah 20:7-13

New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised

⁷ O Lord, you have enticed me,
    and I was enticed;
you have overpowered me,
    and you have prevailed.
I have become a laughing-stock all day long;
    everyone mocks me.
⁸ For whenever I speak, I must cry out,
    I must shout, ‘Violence and destruction!’
For the word of the Lord has become for me
    a reproach and derision all day long.
⁹ If I say, ‘I will not mention him,
    or speak any more in his name’,
then within me there is something like a burning fire
    shut up in my bones;
I am weary with holding it in,
    and I cannot.
¹⁰ 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.’
¹¹ But the Lord is with me like a dread warrior;
    therefore my persecutors will stumble,
    and they will not prevail.
They will be greatly shamed,
    for they will not succeed.
Their eternal dishonour
    will never be forgotten.
¹² O Lord of hosts, you test the righteous,
    you see the heart and the mind;
let me see your retribution upon them,
    for to you I have committed my cause.