Jeremiah 20
1 Pashhur son of Immer the priest, who was chief officer in the house of the LORD, heard Jeremiah prophesying these words.
2 Pashhur struck the prophet Jeremiah and put him in the stocks at the Upper Gate of Benjamin, in the house of the LORD.
3 The next day, when Pashhur released Jeremiah from the stocks, Jeremiah said to him, “The LORD does not call you Pashhur, but Terror on Every Side.”
4 For this is what the LORD says: ‘I will make you a terror to yourself and to all your friends. They will fall by the sword of their enemies, and you will see it. I will hand all Judah over to the king of Babylon, who will take them to Babylon and strike them down with the sword.
5 I will give all the wealth of this city, all its produce and all its treasures, and all the treasuries of the kings of Judah, into the hands of their enemies. They will plunder them, seize them, and carry them off to Babylon.
6 And you, Pashhur, and everyone who lives in your house will go into exile. You will go to Babylon, where you will die and be buried—you and all your friends, to whom you prophesied falsely.’”
7 You persuaded me, LORD, and I was persuaded; you overpowered me and prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all day long; everyone mocks me.
8 Whenever I speak, I cry out; I proclaim, “Violence and destruction!” For the word of the LORD has brought me disgrace and ridicule all day long.
9 I said, “I will not remember him or speak his name anymore.” But his word became a burning fire in my heart, shut up in my bones. I grew weary of holding it in, and I could not.
10 For I have heard many whispering, “Terror on Every Side! Report him! Let’s report him!” All my trusted friends are watching for me to stumble: “Perhaps he will be deceived; then we will prevail over him and take our revenge on him.”
11 But the LORD is with me like a fearsome warrior, so my pursuers will stumble and will not prevail. They will be utterly ashamed, for they will not succeed. Their disgrace will be everlasting and will never be forgotten.
12 But the LORD of Armies tests the righteous and sees the kidneys and the heart. Let me see your vengeance on them, for I have laid my case before you.
13 Sing to the LORD; praise the LORD, for he has rescued the life of the needy from the hands of evildoers.
14 Cursed be the day I was born! May the day my mother gave birth to me not be blessed.
15 Cursed be the man who brought my father the news, saying, “A son, a boy, has been born to you!” and made him rejoice greatly.
16 May that man be like the cities the LORD overthrew without relenting. May he hear a cry in the morning and an alarm at noon.
17 For he did not kill me in the womb; then my mother would have been my tomb, and her womb would have remained pregnant forever.
18 Why did I come out of the womb to see hardship and sorrow, and why do my days end in shame?
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