Jeremiah 20

The AIT Bible

Pashhur Persecutes Jeremiah

1Now Pashhur son of Immer the priest, who was chief officer in the house of Yahweh, heard Jeremiah prophesying these words.

2And Pashhur struck Jeremiah the prophet and put him in the stocks that were at the Upper Gate of Benjamin, which was in the house of Yahweh.

3And it happened the next day that Pashhur brought Jeremiah out of the stocks, and Jeremiah said to him, “Yahweh has not called your name Pashhur, but rather Terror-on-Every-Side.

4For thus says Yahweh: Behold, I am making you a terror to yourself and to all your friends; they will fall by the sword of their enemies while your eyes look on. And all Judah I will give into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will carry them into exile to Babylon and strike them down with the sword.

5And I will give all the wealth of this city and all its produce and all its precious things, and all the treasures of the kings of Judah I will give into the hand of their enemies; and they will plunder them and take them and bring them to Babylon.

6And you, Pashhur, and all who dwell in your house will go into captivity; and you will come to Babylon, and there you will die, and there you will be buried—you and all your friends to whom you have prophesied falsely.”

Jeremiah's Anguished Complaint

7You enticed me, Yahweh, and I was enticed; you overpowered me and prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all the day; everyone mocks me.

8For as often as I speak, I cry out; “Violence and destruction!” I call out. For the word of Yahweh has become for me a reproach and a derision all the day.

9But if I say, “I will not mention him, and I will not speak any more in his name,” then it becomes in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones; and I grow weary of holding it in, and I cannot.

10For I have heard the whispering of many—“Terror on every side! Report him, and let us report him!”—all my close friends watching for my stumbling: “Perhaps he will be enticed, and we can prevail against him and take our revenge on him.”

11But Yahweh is with me like a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble and not prevail. They will be greatly ashamed, for they have not succeeded—an everlasting disgrace that will not be forgotten.

12O Yahweh of hosts, who tests the righteous, who sees the kidneys and the heart, let me see your vengeance upon them, for to you I have revealed my case.

13Sing to Yahweh! Praise Yahweh! For he has delivered the life of the needy from the hand of evildoers.

Jeremiah Curses His Birth

14Cursed be the day on which I was born! The day my mother bore me, let it not be blessed!

15Cursed be the man who brought the news to my father, saying, “A child is born to you, a son!”—making him very glad.

16Let that man be like the cities that Yahweh overthrew without relenting; let him hear a cry of alarm in the morning and a battle shout at noon,

17because he did not kill me in the womb, so that my mother might have been my grave and her womb forever pregnant.

18Why did I ever come out of the womb to see toil and sorrow, and that my days should be spent in shame?

Open in the interactive reader →