◀ All Reading Plans / Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary) / Jeremiah 20:7-13 (The prophet must speak); Psalm 69:7-10 [11-15] 16-18 (Draw near to me); Romans 6:1b-11 (Buried and raised with Christ in baptism); Matthew 10:24-39 (The cost of discipleship) (New English Translation)

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Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Daily Bible readings that follow the church liturgical year, with thematically matched Old and New Testament readings.

Duration: 1245 days

Jeremiah 20:7-13

Jeremiah Complains about the Reaction to His Ministry

⁷Lord, you coerced me into being a prophet,
and I allowed you to do it.
You overcame my resistance and prevailed over me.^[a]
Now I have become a constant laughingstock.
Everyone ridicules me.
⁸For whenever I prophesy,^[b] I must cry out,^[c]
“Violence and destruction are coming!”^[d]
This message from the Lord^[e] has made me
an object of continual insults and derision.
⁹Sometimes I think, “I will make no mention of his message.
I will not speak as his messenger^[f] anymore.”
But then^[g] his message becomes like a fire
locked up inside of me, burning in my heart and soul.^[h]
I grow weary of trying to hold it in;
I cannot contain it.
¹⁰I^[i] hear many whispering words of intrigue against me.
Those who would cause me terror are everywhere!^[j]
They are saying, “Come on, let’s publicly denounce him!”^[k]
All my so-called friends^[l] are just watching for
something that would lead to my downfall.^[m]
They say, “Perhaps he can be enticed into slipping up,
so we can prevail over^[n] him and get our revenge on him.”
¹¹But the Lord is with me to help me like an awe-inspiring warrior.^[o]
Therefore those who persecute me will fail and will not prevail over me.
They will be thoroughly disgraced because they did not succeed.
Their disgrace will never be forgotten.
¹²O Lord of Heaven’s Armies,^[p] you test and prove the righteous.
You see into people’s hearts and minds.^[q]
Pay them back for what they have done
because I trust you to vindicate my cause.
¹³Sing to the Lord! Praise the Lord!
For he rescues the oppressed from the clutches of evildoers.^[r]

Footnotes

Jeremiah 20:7 tn The translation is admittedly interpretive but so is every other translation that tries to capture the nuance of the verb rendered here “coerced.” Here the Hebrew text reads, “You [—]ed me, and I let myself be [—]ed. You overpowered me and prevailed.” The value one assigns to [—] is in every case interpretive, based on what one thinks the context is referring to. The word is rendered “deceived” or “tricked” by several English versions (see, e.g., KJV, NASB, TEV, ICV), as though God had misled him. It is rendered “enticed” by some (see, e.g., NRSV, NJPS), as though God had tempted him with false hopes. Some go so far as to accuse Jeremiah of accusing God of metaphorically “raping” him. It is true that the word is used of “seducing” a virgin in Exod 22:15, and that it is used in several places to refer to “deceiving” someone with false words (Prov 24:28; Ps 78:36). It is also true that it is used of “coaxing” someone to reveal something he does not want to (Judg 14:15; 16:5), and of “enticing” someone to do something on the basis of false hopes (1 Kgs 22:20-22; Prov 1:10). However, it does not always have negative connotations or associations. In Hos 2:14 (2:16 HT) God “charms” or “woos” Israel, his estranged ‘wife,’ into the wilderness, where he hopes to win her back to himself. What Jeremiah is alluding to here is crucial for translating and interpreting the word. There is no indication in this passage that Jeremiah is accusing God of misleading him or raising false hopes; God informed him at the outset that he would encounter opposition (1:17-19). Rather, he is alluding to his call to be a prophet, a call which he initially resisted but was persuaded to undertake because of God’s persistence (Jer 1:7-10). The best single word to translate “…” with is thus “persuaded” or “coerced.” The translation spells out the allusion explicitly, so the reader is not left wondering about what is being alluded to when Jeremiah speaks of being “coerced.” The translation “I let you do it” is a way of rendering the Niphal of the same verb, which must be tolerative rather than passive, since the normal passive for the Piel would be the Pual (See IBHS 389-90 §23.4g for discussion and examples.). The translation “you overcame my resistance” is based on allusion to the same context (1:7-10) and on the parallel use of חָזַק (khazaq) as a transitive verb with a direct object in 1 Kgs 16:22.
Jeremiah 20:8 tn Heb “speak,” but the speaking is in the context of speaking as a prophet.
Jeremiah 20:8 tn Heb “I cry out, I proclaim.”
Jeremiah 20:8 tn Heb “Violence and destruction.”sn The words “Violence and destruction…” are a synopsis of his messages of judgment. Jeremiah is lamenting that his ministry up to this point has been one of judgment and has brought him nothing but ridicule because the Lord has not carried out his threats. He appears in the eyes of the people to be a false prophet.
Jeremiah 20:8 tn Heb “the word of the Lord.” For the use of כִּי…כִּי (ki…ki) here in the sense of “for…and,” see KBL 432 s.v. כּי 10.
Jeremiah 20:9 tn Heb “speak in his name.” This idiom occurs in passages where someone functions as the messenger under the authority of another. See Exod 5:23; Deut 18:19; 29:20; Jer 14:14. The antecedent in the first line is quite commonly misidentified as being “him,” i.e., the Lord. Comparison, however, with the rest of the context, especially the consequential clause “then it becomes” (וְהָיָה, v^ehayah), and Jer 23:36 shows that it is “the word of the Lord.”
Jeremiah 20:9 tn The English sentence has again been restructured for the sake of English style. The Hebrew construction involves two vav consecutive perfects in a condition and consequence relation: “If I say to myself…, then it [his word] becomes.” See GKC 337 §112.kk for the construction.
Jeremiah 20:9 sn Heb “It is in my heart like a burning fire, shut up in my bones.” In addition to standing as part for the whole, the “bones” for the person (e.g., Ps 35:10), the bones were associated with fear (e.g., Job 4:14), with pain (e.g., Job 33:19, Ps 102:3 [102:4 HT]), and with joy or sorrow (e.g., Ps 51:8 [51:10 HT]). As has been mentioned several times, the heart was connected with intellectual and volitional concerns.
Jeremiah 20:10 tn It would be difficult to render accurately the Hebrew particle כִּי (ki) that introduces this verse without lengthening the English line unduly. It probably means something like “This is true, even though I…,” i.e., the particle is concessive (cf. BDB s.v. כִּי 2.c). No other nuance seems appropriate. The particle is left out of the translation, but its presence is acknowledged here.
Jeremiah 20:10 tn The phrase translated “Those who would cause me terror are everywhere” has already occurred in 6:25, in the context of the terror caused by the enemy from the north, and in 20:3, in reference to the curse pronounced on Pashhur, who would experience it firsthand. Some have seen the phrase here not as Jeremiah’s ejaculation of terror but as his assailants’ taunts of his message or even their taunting nickname for him. But comparison of this passage with the first two lines of Ps 31:13 (31:14 HT), which are word for word the same as these two, will show that it refers to the terror inspired by the plots of his enemies to do away with him. It is also clear from the context of that passage and the following context here that the “whispering of many” (the literal translation of “many whispering words of intrigue against me”) refers to intrigues to take vengeance on him by killing him.
Jeremiah 20:10 tn Heb “Denounce and let us denounce him.” The verb that is translated “denounce” (נָגַד, nagad) does not very often take an accusative object of person as it does here. When it does, it usually means to inform someone. The only relevant passage appears to be Job 17:5, where it means something like “denounce.” What is probably involved here are the attempts to portray Jeremiah as a traitor (Jer 26:10) and a false prophet (see his conflict with Hananiah in Jer 28).
Jeremiah 20:10 tn Heb “the men of my peace [who are concerned about my welfare].” For this phrase compare Ps 41:9 (41:10 HT) and Jer 38:22. It is generally agreed that irony is being invoked here, hence “so-called” is supplied in the translation to bring it out.
Jeremiah 20:10 tn Heb “watching my stumbling [for me to stumble].” Metaphorically they were watching for some slip-up that would lead to his downfall. Cf. Pss 35:15; 38:17 (38:18 HT).
Jeremiah 20:10 tn All the text says literally is, “Perhaps he can be enticed so that we can prevail over him.” However, the word “enticed” needs some qualification. As W. McKane (Jeremiah [ICC], 1:479) notes, it should probably be read in the context of the “stumbling” (= “something that would lead to my downfall”). Hence “slipping up” has been supplied as an object. It is vague enough to avoid specifics, as the original text does, but suggests some reference to “something that would lead to my downfall.”sn An ironical wordplay occurs between terms here (“enticed,” “prevail over”) and the same Hebrew words in v. 7 (“coerced,” “prevailed over”), where they describe the Lord coercing Jeremiah into being a spokesman by overcoming his resistance. Jeremiah is lamenting that it was God’s call to speak his word, which he could not (and still cannot) resist, that has led, ironically, to his endangerment.
Jeremiah 20:11 sn This line has some interesting ties with Jer 15:20-21, where Jeremiah is assured by God that he is indeed with him, as he promised him when he called him (1:8, 19), and will deliver him from the clutches of wicked and violent people. The word translated here “awe-inspiring” is the same as the word “violent people” there. Jeremiah is confident that his “awe-inspiring” warrior will overcome “violent people.” The statement of confidence here is, by the way, a common element in the psalms of petition in the Psalter. The common elements of that type of psalm are all here: invocation (v. 7), lament (vv. 7-10), confession of trust/confidence in being heard (v. 11), petition (v. 12), and thanksgiving or praise (v. 13). For some examples of this type of psalm, see Pss 3, 7, and 26.
Jeremiah 20:12 tn Heb “Yahweh of Armies.”sn See the study note on 2:19 for explanation of this title for God.
Jeremiah 20:12 tn Heb “Lord of Armies, the one who tests the righteous, who sees kidneys and heart.” The sentence has been broken up to avoid a long and complex English sentence. The translation is more in keeping with contemporary English style.sn This verse is almost an exact duplication of the petition in one of Jeremiah’s earlier prayers and complaints. See Jer 11:20 and notes there for explanation of the Hebrew psychology underlying the use of “kidneys and heart” here. For the thoughts expressed here see Ps 17.
Jeremiah 20:13 sn While it may be a little confusing to modern readers to see the fluctuation in moods and the shifts in addressee in a prayer and complaint like this, it was not at all unusual for Israel, where these were often offered in the temple in the conscious presence of God before fellow worshipers. For another example of these same shifts, see Ps 22, which is a prayer of David in a time of deep distress.

Psalm 69:7-10

⁷For I suffer^[a] humiliation for your sake^[b]
and am thoroughly disgraced.^[c]
⁸My own brothers treat me like a stranger;
they act as if I were a foreigner.^[d]
⁹Certainly^[e] zeal for^[f] your house^[g] consumes me;
I endure the insults of those who insult you.^[h]
¹⁰I weep and refrain from eating food,^[i]
which causes others to insult me.^[j]

Psalm 69:11-15

¹¹I wear sackcloth
and they ridicule me.^[a]
¹²Those who sit at the city gate gossip about me;
drunkards mock me in their songs.^[b]
¹³O Lord, may you hear my prayer and be favorably disposed to me.^[c]
O God, because of your great loyal love,
answer me with your faithful deliverance.^[d]
¹⁴Rescue me from the mud. Don’t let me sink.
Deliver me^[e] from those who hate me,
from the deep water.
¹⁵Don’t let the current overpower me.
Don’t let the deep swallow me up.
Don’t let the Pit^[f] devour me.^[g]

Psalm 69:16-18

¹⁶Answer me, O Lord, for your loyal love is good.^[a]
Because of your great compassion, turn toward me.
¹⁷Do not ignore^[b] your servant,
for I am in trouble. Answer me right away.^[c]
¹⁸Come near me and redeem me.^[d]
Because of my enemies, rescue me.

Romans 6:1-11

The Believer’s Freedom from Sin’s Domination

6 What shall we say then? Are we to remain in sin so that grace may increase? ²Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it? ³Or do you not know that as many as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may live a new life.^[a]

⁵For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be united in the likeness of his resurrection.^[b] ⁶We know that^[c] our old man was crucified with him so that the body of sin would no longer dominate us,^[d] so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. ⁷(For someone who has died has been freed from sin.)^[e]

⁸Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹We know^[f] that since Christ has been raised from the dead, he is never going to die^[g] again; death no longer has mastery over him. ¹⁰For the death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. ¹¹So you too consider yourselves^[h] dead to sin, but^[i] alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Matthew 10:24-39

²⁴“A disciple is not greater than his teacher, nor a slave^[a] greater than his master. ²⁵It is enough for the disciple to become like his teacher, and the slave like his master. If they have called the head of the house ‘Beelzebul,’ how much worse will they call^[b] the members of his household!

Fear God, Not Man

²⁶“Do^[c] not be afraid of them, for nothing is hidden^[d] that will not be revealed,^[e] and nothing is secret that will not be made known. ²⁷What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light, and what is whispered in your ear,^[f] proclaim from the housetops.^[g] ²⁸Do^[h] not be afraid of those who kill the body^[i] but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the one who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.^[j] ²⁹Aren’t two sparrows sold for a penny?^[k] Yet not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will.^[l] ³⁰Even all the hairs on your head are numbered. ³¹So do not be afraid;^[m] you are more valuable than many sparrows.

³²“Whoever, then, acknowledges^[n] me before people, I will acknowledge^[o] before my Father in heaven. ³³But whoever denies me before people, I will deny him also before my Father in heaven.

Not Peace, but a Sword

³⁴“Do not think that I have come to bring^[p] peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace but a sword!^[q] ³⁵For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, ³⁶and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household.^[r]

³⁷“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy^[s] of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. ³⁸And whoever does not take up his cross^[t] and follow me is not worthy of me. ³⁹Whoever finds his life^[u] will lose it,^[v] and whoever loses his life because of me^[w] will find it.

Footnotes

Matthew 10:24 tn See the note on the word “slave” in 8:9.
Matthew 10:25 tn The words “will they call” are not in the Greek text but are implied, and have been supplied in the translation for clarity.
Matthew 10:26 tn Grk “Therefore do not.” Here οὖν (oun) has not been translated.
Matthew 10:26 tn Or “concealed.”
Matthew 10:26 tn The passive voice here and with the next verb is probably used for rhetorical effect. Although it is common to understand such usage, particularly in the gospels, as examples of the so-called “divine passive” where God is the unstated performer of the action, according to Wallace (ExSyn 438) this category is overused.sn The passive verbs revealed and made known suggest the revelation comes from God. The text is both a warning about bad things being revealed and an encouragement that good things will be made known.
Matthew 10:27 tn Grk “what you hear in the ear,” an idiom meaning “say someth. into someone’s ear, i.e., secretly or in confidence, whisper” (BDAG 739 s.v. οὖς 1).
Matthew 10:27 tn The expression “proclaim from the housetops” is an idiom for proclaiming something publicly (L&N 7.51; BDAG 266 s.v. δῶμα). Roofs of many first century Jewish houses in Judea and Galilee were flat and had access either from outside or from within the house. Something shouted from atop a house would be heard by everyone in the street below.
Matthew 10:28 tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated.
Matthew 10:28 sn A similar exhortation is found in 4 Macc 13:14-15, reflecting the view of Judaism in the intertestamental period. The statement here assumes there is more to a person than a body. As J. Nolland states, “Fear of God is to displace fear of death-dealing persecutors. The stakes are higher with God” (Matthew [NIGTC], 436).
Matthew 10:28 sn While destroy is sometimes taken to mean annihilation, it does not necessarily have to imply that here (“Of eternal death… Mt 10:28, ” BDAG 116 s.v. ἀπόλλυμι 1.a.α). There are some Jewish intertestamental texts that appear to reflect a belief in everlasting punishment for the wicked (Jdt 16:17; 1QS 2:8) as well as Rev 14:11 in the NT. See also the note on the word hell in 5:22.
Matthew 10:29 sn The penny refers to an assarion, a small Roman copper coin. One of them was worth one-sixteenth of a denarius or less than a half hour’s average wage. Sparrows were the cheapest items sold in the market. The point of Jesus’ statement is that God knows about even the most financially insignificant things; see Isa 49:15.
Matthew 10:29 tn Or “to the ground without the knowledge and consent of your Father.”sn This is a typical form of rabbinic argumentation, from the lesser to the greater: If God cares about the lesser thing (sparrows) how much more does he care about the greater thing (people).
Matthew 10:31 sn This represents the third call by Jesus not to be afraid in the section (previously in vv. 26, 28). Since these two previous references were related to fear of persecution, it is probable that this one does as well. Once again the sparrows are mentioned and the argument is from lesser to greater (if God cares about individual hairs on the head and about sparrows, how much more does he care about people).
Matthew 10:32 tn Or “confesses”; cf. BDAG 708 s.v. ὁμολογέω 4, “to acknowledge someth., ordinarily in public, acknowledge, claim, profess, praise.”
Matthew 10:32 tn Grk “I will acknowledge [or, confess] him also.”sn This acknowledgment will take place at the judgment. On Jesus and judgment, see Luke 22:69; Acts 10:42-43; 17:31.
Matthew 10:34 tn Grk “cast.” For βάλλω (ballō) in the sense of bringing about (or causing) a state or condition, see L&N 13.14; BDAG 163-64 s.v. 4.
Matthew 10:34 sn For rhetorical reasons, Jesus’ statement is deliberately paradoxical (seeming to state the opposite of Matt 10:13 where the messengers are to bring peace). The conflict implied by the sword is not primarily eschatological in this context, however, but immediate, and concerns the division and discord even among family members that a person’s allegiance to Jesus would bring (vv. 35-39).
Matthew 10:36 tn Matt 10:35-36 are an allusion to Mic 7:6.
Matthew 10:37 tn Here “worthy” (ἄξιος, axios) means “does not deserve to belong to me” (BDAG 94 s.v. 2.a), i.e., “is not worthy to be my disciple” (cf. Luke 14:26) or perhaps “is not worthy to participate in the kingdom” (to be undeserving of Jesus is to be undeserving of the kingdom he brings).sn The statement demands uncompromising, radical loyalty to Jesus, a loyalty so powerful that it surpasses normal human relationships, even familial ones.
Matthew 10:38 sn According to Plutarch, “Every criminal who is executed carries his own cross” (De sera numinus vindicta 9.554b). Jesus is speaking figuratively here in the context of rejection. If one’s allegiance to Jesus does not have absolute priority, then one will not follow him in the face of possible rejection and persecution.
Matthew 10:39 tn Grk “his soul.” The Greek ψυχή (psuchē) has many different meanings depending on the context. The two primary meanings here are the earthly life (animate life, sometimes called “physical life”) and the inner life (the life that transcends the earthly life, sometimes called “the soul”). The fact that the Greek term can have both meanings creates in this verse both a paradox and a wordplay. The desire to preserve both aspects of ψυχή (psuchē) for oneself creates the tension here (cf. BDAG 1099 s.v. 1.a; 2.d,e). Translation of the Greek term ψυχή (psuchē) presents a particularly difficult problem in this verse. Most English versions since the KJV have translated the term “life.” This preserves the paradox of finding one’s “life” (in the sense of earthly life) while at the same time really losing it (in the sense of “soul” or transcendent inner life) and vice versa, but at the same time it obscures the wordplay that results from the same Greek word having multiple meanings. To translate as “soul,” however, gives the modern English reader the impression of the immortal soul at the expense of the earthly life. On the whole it is probably best to use the translation “life” and retain the paradox at the expense of the wordplay.
Matthew 10:39 sn The Greek word translated life can refer to both earthly, physical life and inner, transcendent life (one’s “soul”). In the context, if a person is not willing to suffer the world’s rejection and persecution in order to follow Jesus but instead seeks to retain his physical life, then that person will lose both physical life and inner, transcendent life (at the judgment). On the other hand, the one who willingly gives up earthly, physical life to follow Jesus (“loses his life because of me”) will ultimately find one’s “soul” (note that the parallel in John’s Gospel speaks of “guarding one’s ‘soul’ for eternal life” (John 12:25).
Matthew 10:39 tn Or “for my sake.” The traditional rendering “for my sake” can be understood in the sense of “for my benefit,” but the Greek term ἕνεκα (heneka) indicates the cause or reason for something (BDAG 334 s.v. 1).

New English Translation (NET)

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Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Jeremiah Complains about the Reaction to His Ministry

Footnotes

Footnotes

Footnotes

Footnotes

The Believer’s Freedom from Sin’s Domination

Footnotes

Fear God, Not Man

Not Peace, but a Sword

Footnotes