Chapter 20

  Now it came to the ears of Pashhur, the son of Immer the priest, who was chief in authority in the house of the Lord, that Jeremiah was saying these things;  

  And Pashhur gave blows to Jeremiah and had his feet chained in a framework of wood in the higher doorway of Benjamin, which was in the house of the Lord.  

  Then on the day after, Pashhur let Jeremiah loose. Then Jeremiah said to him, The Lord has given you the name of Magor-missabib (Cause-of-fear-on-every-side), not Pashhur.  

  For the Lord has said, See, I will make you a cause of fear to yourself and to all your friends: they will come to their death by the sword of their haters, and your eyes will see it: and I will give all Judah into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he will take them away prisoners into Babylon and put them to the sword.  

  And more than this, I will give all the wealth of this town and all its profits and all its things of value, even all the stores of the kings of Judah will I give into the hands of their haters, who will put violent hands on them and take them away to Babylon.  

  And you, Pashhur, and all who are in your house, will go away prisoners: you will come to Babylon, and there your body will be put to rest, you and all your friends, to whom you said false words.  

  O Lord, you have been false to me, and I was tricked; you are stronger than I, and have overcome me: I have become a thing to be laughed at all the day, everyone makes sport of me.  

  For every word I say is a cry for help; I say with a loud voice, Violent behaviour and wasting: because the word of the Lord is made a shame to me and a cause of laughing all the day.  

  And if I say, I will not keep him in mind, I will not say another word in his name; then it is in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am tired of keeping myself in, I am not able to do it.  

  For numbers of them say evil secretly in my hearing (there is fear on every side): they say, Come, let us give witness against him; all my nearest friends, who are watching for my fall, say, It may be that he will be taken by deceit, and we will get the better of him and give him punishment.  

  But the Lord is with me as a great one, greatly to be feared: so my attackers will have a fall, and they will not overcome me: they will be greatly shamed, because they have not done wisely, even with an unending shame, kept in memory for ever.  

  But, O Lord of armies, testing the upright and seeing the thoughts and the heart, let me see your punishment come on them; for I have put my cause before you.  

  Make melody to the Lord, give praise to the Lord: for he has made the soul of the poor man free from the hands of the evil-doers.  

  A curse on the day of my birth: let there be no blessing on the day when my mother had me.  

  A curse on the man who gave the news to my father, saying, You have a male child; making him very glad.  

  May that man be like the towns overturned by the Lord without mercy: let a cry for help come to his ears in the morning, and the sound of war in the middle of the day;  

  Because he did not put me to death before my birth took place: so my mother's body would have been my last resting-place, and she would have been with child for ever.  

  Why did I come from my mother's body to see pain and sorrow, so that my days might be wasted with shame?