Jeremiah 20:7-18

YAHWEH, you pushed me into being a prophet, and I let you do it. You overpowered me, and now I am overcome. I have become nothing but a joke all day long, with everyone mocking me. Whenever I prophesy, you have me speak, “Violence and destruction!” I am ridiculed every time I proclaim your word. I get nothing but trouble and insults all day long. When I tell myself, “I’m not going to speak his message ever again or prophesy any more in his name,” then all at once you are within me like a burning, consuming fire deep in my bones. I try my best to hold your word inside, but I can’t hold it back any longer! For I heard them whispering behind my back: “Terror everywhere! That’s all he prophesies.” All my close friends watch for me to fall. “Let’s turn him in to the authorities,” they say. “Perhaps we can set a trap for him. Finally, we will prevail over him and take our revenge on him.” YAHWEH But YAHWEH is a mighty, fearless warrior standing at my side. My persecutors are the ones who will fall down and fail; disgraced by their failure, they will not succeed. Their shame will stick to them forever. O  YAHWEH, Commander of Angel Armies, you test the righteous. You probe my deepest thoughts and motives. I have committed my cause to you, so let me watch as you take revenge on my enemies. Sing! Sing praises to YAHWEH, for he rescues the soul of the needy from the power of the wicked. Cursed be the day on which I was born! The day when my mother bore me, may that day never be blessed! Put a curse on the man who made my father glad by saying, “Good news—it’s a boy! You have a son.” Let that man be like the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah that YAHWEH destroyed without pity. Let him hear shouts of alarm in the morning and battle cries at noon. For he did not kill me before I came from the womb, making my pregnant mother’s womb my grave forever. Why was I even born? Was it just to experience toil and sorrow and spend my days in shame?