20:1  NOW PASHHUR son of Immer, the priest, who was [also] chief officer in the house of the Lord, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things.

20:2  Then Pashhur beat Jeremiah the prophet and put him in the stocks that were at the upper Benjamin Gate by the house of the Lord.

20:3  And the next day Pashhur brought Jeremiah out of the stocks. Then Jeremiah said to him, The Lord does not call your name Pashhur, but Magor-missabib [terror on every side].

20:4  For thus says the Lord: Behold, I will make you a terror to yourself and to all your friends; they will fall by the sword of their enemies while you look on. And I will give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon; he will carry them captive to Babylon and will slay them with the sword.

20:5  Moreover, I will deliver all the riches of this city--all the results of its labors, all its precious things, and all the treasures of the kings of Judah--into the hand of their enemies, who will make them a prey {and} plunder them and seize them and carry them to Babylon.

20:6  And you, Pashhur, and all who dwell in your house shall go into captivity; you shall go to Babylon, and there you shall die and be buried, you and all your friends to whom you have prophesied falsely.

20:7  [But Jeremiah said] O Lord, You have persuaded {and} deceived me, and I was persuaded {and} deceived; You are stronger than I am and You have prevailed. I am a laughingstock all the day; everyone mocks me.

20:8  For whenever I speak, I must cry out {and} complain; I shout, Violence and destruction! For the word of the Lord has become to me a reproach and a derision {and} has brought me insult all day long.

20:9  If I say, I will not make mention of [the Lord] or speak any more in His name, in my mind {and} heart it is as if there were a burning fire shut up in my bones. And I am weary of enduring {and} holding it in; I cannot [contain it any longer].

20:10  For I have heard many whispering {and} defaming, [There is] terror on every side! Denounce him! Let us denounce him! Say all my familiar friends, they who watch for my fall, Perhaps he will be persuaded {and} deceived; then we will prevail against him, and we will get our revenge on him.

20:11  But the Lord is with me as a mighty {and} terrible One; therefore my persecutors will stumble, and they will not overcome [me]. They will be utterly put to shame, for they will not deal wisely {or} prosper [in their schemes]; their eternal dishonor will never be forgotten.

20:12  But, O Lord of hosts, You Who try the righteous, Who see the heart and the mind, let me see Your vengeance on them, for to You have I revealed {and} committed my cause.

20:13  Sing to the Lord! Praise the Lord! For He has delivered the life of the poor {and} needy from the hands of evildoers.

20:14  Cursed be the day on which I was born! Let not the day on which my mother bore me be blessed!

20:15  Cursed be the man who brought the tidings to my father, saying, A son is born to you!--making him very glad.

20:16  And let that man be like the cities which the Lord overthrew, and did not relent. Let him hear the [war] cry in the morning and the shouting of alarm at noon,

20:17  Because he did not slay me in the womb, so that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb always great.

20:18  Why did I come out of the womb to see labor and sorrow, that my days should be consumed in shame?