Login Go Premium

Jeremiah 20:7-18

Read this passage and open each verse for the full verse feed and commentary tools.

7Lord, You persuaded me and I let myself be persuaded;

You have overcome me and prevailed.

I have become a laughingstock all day long;

Everyone mocks me.

8For each time I speak, I cry aloud;

I proclaim violence and destruction,

Because for me the word of the Lord has resulted

In taunting and derision all day long.

9But if I say, “I will not remember Him

Nor speak anymore in His name,”

Then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire

Shut up in my bones;

And I am tired of holding it in,

And I cannot endure it.

10For I have heard the whispering of many,

“Terror on every side!

Denounce him; let’s denounce him!”

All my trusted friends,

Watching for my fall, say:

“Perhaps he will be persuaded, so that we may prevail against him

And take our revenge on him.”

11But the Lord is with me like a powerful champion;

Therefore my persecutors will stumble and not prevail.

They will be put to great shame because they have failed,

An everlasting disgrace that will not be forgotten.

12Yet, Lord of armies, who tests the righteous,

Who sees the mind and the heart;

Let me see Your vengeance on them,

For to You I have disclosed my cause.

13Sing to the Lord, praise the Lord!

For He has saved the soul of the needy one

From the hand of evildoers.

14Cursed be the day when I was born;

May the day when my mother gave birth to me not be blessed!

15Cursed be the man who brought the news

To my father, saying,

“A boy has been born to you!”

And made him very happy.

16But may that man be like the cities

Which the Lord overthrew without relenting,

And may he hear an outcry in the morning

And an alarm for war at noon;

17Because he did not kill me before birth,

So that my mother would have been my grave,

And her womb forever pregnant.

18Why did I ever come out of the womb

To look at trouble and sorrow,

So that my days have been spent in shame?