Jeremiah 20:7-18
Jeremiah complains to the Lord
and I let you do that.
You used your power to make me agree,
and you won.
Now everybody laughs at me and they
‘Terrible trouble is coming!’
When I shout that message from the Lord,
people
They insult me.
‘I will say nothing about the Lord or his message.’
But then his message burns like a fire inside me.
It gives me pain in my mind and my body.
I cannot keep his message to myself.
I have to speak it.
They say, ‘
We should tell the officers what he is saying.’
All my friends want me to make a mistake
so that they can
They say, ‘Perhaps we can cause him to say something wrong.
Then we will have power over him.
We will pay him back for the trouble he has given us.’
like a brave soldier who will fight for me.
So people who want to hurt me will fail.
They will not get power over me.
They will be very ashamed because they have failed.
Nobody will ever forget their
to see if they are
You know what people think.
You know their feelings.
I
So
He
from the power of
That day was not a happy day,
the day that my mother gave birth to me.
‘Good news! You have a son!’
I would like to curse that man too.
as he completely destroyed those cities long ago.
I want that man to hear people who are weeping in the morning.
I want him to hear the noise of
I should have died inside my mother.
She would have held me inside her.
That would have been my
In my life, I only receive trouble and pain.
When I die, all I will have is