18 ‘Why(A) then have You brought me out of the womb?
Oh, that I had perished and no eye had seen me!

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18 “Why then did you bring me out of the womb?(A)
    I wish I had died before any eye saw me.(B)

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19 I would have been as though I had not been.
I would have been carried from the womb to the grave.

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19 If only I had never come into being,
    or had been carried straight from the womb to the grave!(A)

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14 (A)Cursed be the day in which I was born!
Let the day not be blessed in which my mother bore me!
15 Let the man be cursed
Who brought news to my father, saying,
“A male child has been born to you!”
Making him very glad.
16 And let that man be like the cities
Which the Lord (B)overthrew, and did not relent;
Let him (C)hear the cry in the morning
And the shouting at noon,
17 (D)Because he did not kill me from the womb,
That my mother might have been my grave,
And her womb always enlarged with me.
18 (E)Why did I come forth from the womb to (F)see [a]labor and sorrow,
That my days should be consumed with shame?

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Footnotes

  1. Jeremiah 20:18 toil

14 Cursed be the day I was born!(A)
    May the day my mother bore me not be blessed!
15 Cursed be the man who brought my father the news,
    who made him very glad, saying,
    “A child is born to you—a son!”
16 May that man be like the towns(B)
    the Lord overthrew without pity.
May he hear wailing(C) in the morning,
    a battle cry at noon.
17 For he did not kill me in the womb,(D)
    with my mother as my grave,
    her womb enlarged forever.
18 Why did I ever come out of the womb(E)
    to see trouble(F) and sorrow
    and to end my days in shame?(G)

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