20The priest Pashur son of Immer was the senior priest in GOD's Temple. He heard Jeremiah preach this sermon.H6583H1121H564H3548H6496H5057H1004H3068H8085H3414H5012H16972He whipped Jeremiah the prophet and put him in the stocks at the Upper Benjamin Gate of GOD's Temple.H6583H5221H3414H5030H5414H4115H5945H8179H1144H1004H30683The next day Pashur came and let him go. Jeremiah told him, "GOD has a new name for you: not Pashur but Danger-Everywhere,H4283H6583H3318H3414H4115H559H3414H3068H7121H8034H6583H40364because 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.H559H3068H5414H4032H157H5307H2719H341H5869H7200H5414H3063H3027H4428H894H1540H894H5221H27195Everything 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.H5414H2633H5892H3018H3366H214H4428H3063H5414H3027H341H962H3947H935H8946"'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.'"H6583H3427H1004H3212H7628H935H894H4191H6912H157H5012H82677You 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.H3068H6601H6601H2388H3201H7814H3117H39328Every time I open my mouth I'm shouting, "Murder!" or "Rape!" And all I get for my GOD-warnings are insults and contempt.H1767H1696H2199H7121H2555H7701H1697H3068H2781H7047H31179But 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!H559H2142H1696H8034H3820H1197H784H6113H6106H3811H3557H320110Then 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!"H8085H1681H7227H4032H5439H5046H5046H582H7965H8104H6763H6761H6601H3201H3947H536011But 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.H3068H1368H6184H7291H3782H3201H3966H954H7919H5769H3639H791112Oh, 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.H3068H6635H974H6662H7200H3629H3820H7200H5360H1540H737913Sing to GOD! All praise to GOD! He saves the weak from the grip of the wicked.H7891H3068H1984H3068H5337H5315H34H3027H748914Curse the day I was born! The day my mother bore me— a curse on it, I say!H779H3117H3205H3117H517H3205H128815And curse the man who delivered the news to my father: "You've got a new baby—a boy baby!" (How happy it made him.)H779H376H1319H1H559H2145H1121H3205H8055H805516Let 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.H376H5892H3068H2015H5162H8085H2201H1242H8643H6256H667217He 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.H4191H7358H517H6913H7358H5769H203018Why, 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.H3318H7358H7200H5999H3015H3117H3615H1322