Jeremiah 20:7-18

Common English Bible

⁷ Lord, you enticed me, and I was taken in.
    You were too strong for me, and you prevailed.
Now I’m laughed at all the time;
    everyone mocks me.
⁸ Every time I open my mouth, I cry out
    and say, “Violence and destruction!”
The Lord’s word has brought me
    nothing but insult and injury, constantly.
⁹ I thought, I’ll forget him;
    I’ll no longer speak in his name.
But there’s an intense fire in my heart,
    trapped in my bones.
    I’m drained trying to contain it;
        I’m unable to do it.
¹⁰ I hear many whispering—
    “Panic Lurks Everywhere!—
    proclaim, yes, let’s proclaim it ourselves!”
All my friends are waiting for me to stumble:
    “Perhaps he can be enticed.
        Then we’ll prevail against him
            and get our revenge on him!”
¹¹ But the Lord is with me like a strong defender.
    Therefore, my oppressors
        will stumble and not prevail.
They will be disgraced by their own failures.
    Their dishonor will never be forgotten.
¹² The Lord of heavenly forces tests the righteous
    and discerns the heart and the mind.
Let me see your retribution upon them,
    for I have committed my case to you.
¹³ Sing to the Lord,
    praise the Lord,
        for he has rescued the needy
        from the clutches of evildoers.
¹⁴ Cursed be the day that I was born.
    May the day my mother gave birth to me not be blessed.
¹⁵ Cursed be the one
    who delivered the news to my father,
        “You have a son!”—
        filling him with joy.
¹⁶ May the bearer of that news be like the cities
    that the Lord destroyed without mercy.
May he hear screams in the morning,
    and the battle cries at noon,
¹⁷     because he didn’t kill me in the womb
        and let my mother become my grave,
        her womb pregnant forever.
¹⁸ Why was I ever born
    when all I see is suffering and misery,
        and my days are filled with shame?