Charles Ellicott Commentary Jeremiah 20:8

"For as often as I speak, I cry out; I cry, Violence and destruction! because the word of Jehovah is made a reproach unto me, and a derision, all the day." — Jeremiah 20:8 (ASV)

I cried out, I cried. —The two Hebrew words are not alike, as the English ones are, the first being the cry of complaint, the second of protest: When I speak (the tense implies from the beginning of his work until now), I complain; I call out (against) violence and spoil. They had formed the burden of his discourses, he had borne his witness against them, and yet “the word of Jehovah” so proclaimed by him had exposed him only to derision. He had been the champion of the people’s rights, and yet they mocked and scorned him.