Jeremiah 20:7-18 - Jeremiah's Lament

⁷ O LORD, thou have persuaded me, and I was persuaded. Thou are stronger than I, and have prevailed. I have become a laughing-stock all the day; everyone mocks me. ⁸ For as often as I speak, I cry out. I cry, Violence and destruction! Because the word of LORD is made a reproach to me, and a derision, all the day. ⁹ And if I say, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name, then there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with forbearing, and I cannot. ¹⁰ For I have heard the defaming of many, terror on every side. Denounce, and we will denounce him, [say] all my familiar friends, those who watch for my fall. Perhaps he will be persuaded, and we shall prevail against him, and we sha ¹¹ But LORD is with me as an awesome mighty one. Therefore my persecutors shall stumble, and they shall not prevail. They shall be utterly put to shame, because they have not dealt wisely, even with an everlasting dishonor which shall ¹² But, O LORD of hosts, who tries the righteous, who sees the heart and the mind, let me see thy vengeance on them, for to thee I have revealed my cause. ¹³ Sing to LORD. Praise ye LORD, for he has delivered the soul of the needy man from the hand of evil-doers.

¹⁴ Cursed be the day in which I was born. Let not the day in which my mother bore me be blessed. ¹⁵ Cursed be the man who brought news to my father, saying, A man-child is born to thee, making him very glad. ¹⁶ And let that man be as the cities which LORD overthrew, and did not relent. And let him hear a cry in the morning, and shouting at noontime, ¹⁷ because he did not kill me from the womb, and so my mother would have been my grave, and her womb always great. ¹⁸ Why did I come forth out of the womb to see labor and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?