A Message for Pashhur
Jeremiah’s Lament
7 You have persuaded me, O Yahweh, and I was persuaded.
You have overpowered me, and you have prevailed.
I have become a laughingstock all day long.
Everyone[e] is mocking me.
8 For as often as[f] I speak,
I must cry out violence and destruction.
I must shout, for the word of Yahweh has become for me
a disgrace and derision all day long.
9 But if I say, “I will not mention him
and I will no longer speak in his name,”
then it becomes in my heart like a fire burning,
locked up in my bones,
and I struggle to contain it,[g]
and I am not able.
10 For I hear the rumor of many,
“Terror is from all around, denounce him,[h]
yes, let us denounce him!”
All my close friends[i] are watchers of my stumbling,
saying, “perhaps he can be persuaded,
and we can prevail over him,
and we can take our revenge on him.”
11 But Yahweh is with me like a powerful warrior.
Therefore[j] my persecutors will stumble and will not prevail.
They will be very ashamed, for they will not achieve success.
Their everlasting insult[k] will not be forgotten.
12 Yet, O Yahweh of hosts, who tests the righteous,
who sees the heart[l] and the mind,[m]
let me see your retribution upon them,
for to you I have revealed my legal case.
13 Sing to Yahweh, praise Yahweh,
for he has delivered the life of the poor from the hand of evildoers.
14 Cursed be the day on which I was born,
let not the day on which my mother gave birth to me be blessed.
15 Cursed be the man who brought the news to my father,
saying,[n] “A child is born to you, a son!”
and he made him very glad.
16 And let that man be like the cities
that Yahweh demolished without regret,
and let him hear a cry for help in the morning,
and an alarm at the time of noon.
17 Because he did not kill me in the womb,
so that my mother would have been for me my grave,
and her womb would be pregnant forever.
18 Why[o] did I come out from the womb,
to see toil, and sorrow, and to end my days in shame?[p]
Footnotes
- Jeremiah 20:3 Literally “And it was”
- Jeremiah 20:3 Literally “but if”
- Jeremiah 20:4 Here the direct object is supplied from context in the English translation
- Jeremiah 20:6 Literally “in the lie”
- Jeremiah 20:7 Literally “All of him”
- Jeremiah 20:8 Literally “from enough”
- Jeremiah 20:9 Here the direct object is supplied from context in the English translation
- Jeremiah 20:10 Here the direct object is supplied from context in the English translation
- Jeremiah 20:10 Literally “All the human being of my peace”
- Jeremiah 20:11 Literally “Unto thus”
- Jeremiah 20:11 Literally “insult of eternity”
- Jeremiah 20:12 Literally “kidneys”
- Jeremiah 20:12 Literally “heart”
- Jeremiah 20:15 Literally “to say”
- Jeremiah 20:18 Literally “To what this”
- Jeremiah 20:18 Literally “my days will come to an end in shame”