Jeremiah 20:7-18 - Jeremiah's Lament

⁷ LORD, you have persuaded me, and I was persuaded; you are stronger than I, and have prevailed: I am become a laughing-stock all the day, every one mocks me. ⁸ For as often as I speak, I cry out; I cry, "Violence and destruction." because the word of the LORD is made a reproach to me, and a derision, all the day. ⁹ 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 can't contain it. 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 shall take our revenge on him." ¹¹ But the LORD is with me as an awesome mighty one: therefore my persecutors shall stumble, and they shall not prevail; they shall be utterly disappointed, because they have not dealt wisely, even with an everlasting dishonor which shall never be forgotten. ¹² But, the LORD of hosts, who tests the righteous, who sees the heart and the mind, let me see your vengeance on them; for to you have I revealed my cause. ¹³ Sing to the LORD, praise the LORD; for he has delivered the soul of the needy from the hand of evildoers.

¹⁴ Cursed is the day in which I was born: do not let the day in which my mother bore me be blessed. ¹⁵ Cursed is the man who brought news to my father, saying, A boy is born to you; making him very glad. ¹⁶ Let that man be as the cities which the LORD overthrew, and did not repent: 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 came I forth out of the womb to see labor and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?