Jeremiah 20
20
Life’s Been Nothing but Trouble and Tears
1-5The priest Pashur son of Immer was the senior priest in God’s Temple. He heard Jeremiah preach this sermon. He whipped Jeremiah the prophet and put him in the stocks at the Upper Benjamin Gate of God’s Temple. The next day Pashur came and let him go. Jeremiah told him, “God has a new name for you: not Pashur but Danger-Everywhere, because God says, ‘You’re a danger to yourself and everyone around you. All your friends are going to get killed in battle while you stand there and watch. What’s more, I’m turning all of Judah over to the king of Babylon to do whatever he likes with them—haul them off into exile, kill them at whim. Everything worth anything in this city, property and possessions along with everything in the royal treasury—I’m handing it all over to the enemy. They’ll rummage through it and take what they want back to Babylon.
6“‘And you, Pashur, you and everyone in your family will be taken prisoner into exile—that’s right, exile in Babylon. You’ll die and be buried there, you and all your cronies to whom you preached your lies.’”
* * *
7-10You pushed me into this, God, and I let you do it.
You were too much for me.
And now I’m a public joke.
They all poke fun at me.
Every time I open my mouth
I’m shouting, “Murder!” or “Rape!”
And all I get for my God-warnings
are insults and contempt.
But if I say, “Forget it!
No more God-Messages from me!”
The words are fire in my belly,
a burning in my bones.
I’m worn out trying to hold it in.
I can’t do it any longer!
Then I hear whispering behind my back:
“There goes old ‘Danger-Everywhere.’ Shut him up! Report him!”
Old friends watch, hoping I’ll fall flat on my face:
“One misstep and we’ll have him. We’ll get rid of him for good!”
11But God, a most fierce warrior, is at my side.
Those who are after me will be sent sprawling—
Slapstick buffoons falling all over themselves,
a spectacle of humiliation no one will ever forget.
12Oh, God-of-the-Angel-Armies, no one fools you.
You see through everyone, everything.
I want to see you pay them back for what they’ve done.
I rest my case with you.
13Sing to God! All praise to God!
He saves the weak from the grip of the wicked.
* * *
14-18Curse the day
I was born!
The day my mother bore me—
a curse on it, I say!
And curse the man who delivered
the news to my father:
“You’ve got a new baby—a boy baby!”
(How happy it made him.)
Let that birth notice be blacked out,
deleted from the records,
And the man who brought it haunted to his death
with the bad news he brought.
He should have killed me before I was born,
with that womb as my tomb,
My mother pregnant for the rest of her life
with a baby dead in her womb.
Why, oh why, did I ever leave that womb?
Life’s been nothing but trouble and tears,
and what’s coming is more of the same.
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Jeremiah 20: MSG
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.
Jeremiah 20
20
1 And Pashhur, the son of Immer, the priest who had been appointed leader in the house of the Lord, heard Jeremiah prophesying these words.
2 And Pashhur struck the prophet Jeremiah, and he sent him to the stocks, which were at the upper gate of Benjamin at the house of the Lord.
3 And when it had become light on the next day, Pashhur led Jeremiah from the stocks. And Jeremiah said to him: "The Lord has not called your name: 'Pashhur,' but instead: 'Fear all around.' "
4 For thus says the Lord: "Behold, I will give you over to fear, you and all your friends, and they will fall by the sword of their enemies, and your eyes will see it. And I will give all of Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon. And he will lead them away to Babylon, and he will strike them with the sword.
5 And I will give away the entire substance of this city, and all its labor, and every precious thing. And I will give all the treasures of the kings of Judah into the hands of their enemies. And they will plunder them, and take them away, and lead them into Babylon.
6 But you, Pashhur, and all the inhabitants of your house, will go into captivity. And you will go to Babylon. And there you shall die. And there you shall be buried, you and all your friends, to whom you have prophesied a lie."
7 "You have led me away, O Lord, and I have been led away. You have been stronger than I, and you have prevailed. I have become a derision all day long; everyone mocks me.
8 For I speak now as I have long spoken: crying out against iniquity and proclaiming devastation. And the word of the Lord has been made into a reproach against me and a derision, all day long.
9 Then I said: I will not call him to mind, nor will I speak any longer in his name. And my heart became like a raging fire, enclosed within my bones. And I became weary of continuing to bear it.
10 For I heard the insults of many, and terror all around: 'Persecute him!' and, 'Let us persecute him!' from all the men who had been at peace with me and who had kept watch by my side. 'If only there were some way that he might be deceived, and we might prevail against him and obtain vengeance from him!'
11 But the Lord is with me, like a strong warrior. For this reason, those who persecute me will fall, and they will be ineffective. They will be greatly confounded. For they have not understood the everlasting disgrace that will never be wiped away.
12 And you, O Lord of hosts, the Tester of the just, who sees the temperament and the heart: I beg you to let me see your vengeance upon them. For I have revealed my case to you.
13 Sing to the Lord! Praise the Lord! For he has freed the soul of the poor from the hand of the wicked.
14 Cursed is the day on which I was born! The day on which my mother gave birth to me: let it not be blessed!
15 Cursed is the man who announced it to my father, saying, 'A male child has been born to you,' causing him to rejoice with gladness.
16 Let that man be like the cities that the Lord has overthrown without regret. Let him hear an outcry in the morning, and wailing at the time of midday!
17 So let him be, who did not put me to death from the womb, so that my mother would have been my sepulcher, and her womb would have been my eternal resting place!
18 Why did I depart from the womb, so that I would see hardship and sorrow, and so that my days would be consumed by trouble?"
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