Jeremiah 20:7-18 - Jeremiah's Lament

⁷ You deceived me, Lord, and I was deceived.
You seized me and prevailed.
I am a laughingstock all the time;
everyone ridicules me.
⁸ For whenever I speak, I cry out,
I proclaim, “Violence and destruction!”
because the word of the Lord has become for me
constant disgrace and derision.
⁹ If I say, “I won’t mention Him
or speak any longer in His name,”
His message becomes a fire burning in my heart,
shut up in my bones.
I become tired of holding it in,
and I cannot prevail.
¹⁰ For I have heard the gossip of many people,
“Terror is on every side!
Report him; let’s report him!”
Everyone I trusted watches for my fall.
“Perhaps he will be deceived
so that we might prevail against him
and take our vengeance on him.”
¹¹ But the Lord is with me like a violent warrior.
Therefore, my persecutors will stumble and not prevail.
Since they have not succeeded, they will be utterly shamed,
an everlasting humiliation that will never be forgotten.
¹² Lord of Hosts, testing the righteous
and seeing the heart and mind,
let me see Your vengeance on them,
for I have presented my case to You.
¹³ Sing to the Lord!
Praise the Lord,
for He rescues the life of the needy
from the hand of evil people.

¹⁴ May the day I was born
be cursed.
May the day my mother bore me
never be blessed.
¹⁵ May the man be cursed
who brought the news to my father, saying,
“A male child is born to you,”
bringing him great joy.
¹⁶ Let that man be like the cities
the Lord demolished without compassion.
Let him hear an outcry in the morning
and a war cry at noontime
¹⁷ because he didn’t kill me in the womb
so that my mother might have been my grave,
her womb eternally pregnant.
¹⁸ Why did I come out of the womb
to see only struggle and sorrow,
to end my life in shame?