Jeremiah 20:7-18 Thou didst persuade me, O Lord, and I was persuaded; thou laidst thy hand strongly on me, and didst prevail: I am laughed at all the time, every one mocketh me.

Leeser⁽ⁱ⁾ ⁷ Thou didst persuade me, O Lord, and I was persuaded; thou laidst thy hand strongly on me, and didst prevail: I am laughed at all the time, every one mocketh me. ⁸ For as often as I speak must I cry out, violence and wasting must I proclaim; because the word of the Lord is become unto me a disgrace, and a derision, all the time. ⁹ And I thought, I will not make mention of him, and I will not speak any more in his name. But it became in my heart as a burning fire enclosed within my bones, and I was weary with enduring, and I could not overcome it. ¹⁰ For I heard the defaming of many, angry assemblies on every side, “Tell, and we will tell of him.” All the men who ought to seek my welfare, watch for my fall; saying, “Peradventure he may he enticed, and we shall prevail against him, and we will then take our revenge on him.” ¹¹ But the Lord is with me as a mighty powerful one; therefore my persecutors will stumble, and they will not prevail: they will be greatly ashamed, for they will not prosper; it is an everlasting confusion which will never be forgotten. ¹² But, O Lord of hosts, that probest the righteous, seest the reins and the heart, let me see thy vengeance on them; for unto thee have I laid open my cause. ¹³ Sing unto the Lord, praise ye the Lord; for he hath delivered the soul of the needy from the hand of evil-doers. ¹⁴ Cursed be the day whereon I was born: the day on which my mother bore me shall not be blessed. ¹⁵ Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying, A man-child is born unto thee. How very glad did he make him! ¹⁶ And may that same man become like the cities which the Lord overthrew, and bethought himself not; and may he hear a cry of anguish in the morning, and a tumultuous noise at noontide; ¹⁷ Because I was not slain as I escaped from the womb; or that my mother might have become unto me my grave, and her womb have been affected with a perpetual pregnancy. ¹⁸ Wherefore was this that I came forth out of the womb to see trouble and sorrow, that my days should pass away in shame?