Jeremiah 20:14-18

The Voice

¹⁴     Cursed be the day I was born—
        cursed, not blessed is the day my mother gave birth to me.
¹⁵     Cursed be the man who told my overjoyed father,
        “You have a son.”
¹⁶     May he be as cursed as the towns of Sodom and Gomorrah,
        which the Eternal decimated without a care.
    Let him hear cries for help in the morning.
        Let him recoil at the shouts of war at noon,
¹⁷     For he did not kill me before I was born
        so my mother’s womb would become my grave—
        my mother’s womb forever enlarged.
¹⁸     Why was I ever born? To watch such tragedy?
        To feel such sorrow? To live my days in utter shame?