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Jeremiah 20:10 · World English Bible

Jeremiah 20:10 Meaning For I Have Heard the Defaming

For I have heard the defaming of many, “Terror on every side! Denounce, and we will denounce him!” say all my familiar friends, those who watch for my fall. “Perhaps he will be persuaded, and we will prevail against him, and we will take our revenge on him.”

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What does Jeremiah 20:10 mean?

The man who speaks an unwelcome truth learns that his closest companions can become the ones watching most eagerly for him to fall. Jeremiah is encircled by whispering, by friends turned informers hoping he will stumble so they can be rid of the burden his honesty places on them.

From the Clinical Psychology reading below.

Jeremiah 20:10 through 1 lens

The same verse, read by one tradition.

CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY

Clinical Psychology

The man who speaks an unwelcome truth learns that his closest companions can become the ones watching most eagerly for him to fall. Jeremiah is encircled by whispering, by friends turned informers hoping he will stumble so they can be rid of the burden his honesty places on them. The one who names what others deny is rarely thanked for it.

Standing for something carries this cost. Speak against the grain, and the crowd will wait for your first misstep with an appetite close to hunger. Knowing that, and continuing anyway, is what separates a person who serves the truth from one who merely echoes the room.

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Clinical Psychology lens

Live Jeremiah 20:10 today

  1. When you see a text thread turning on someone you know, leave it rather than joining. The appetite for someone else's misstep is easy to catch and hard to put down.
  2. Defend the absent person today, even mildly, even when it makes the room go quiet. One sentence is enough, something like, that is not quite fair to them.
  3. If you have said something unpopular and now people are waiting for you to slip, keep your word small and your actions clean and do not explain yourself twice. Let the pattern answer for you over months.

Have you ever hoped quietly that someone you love would be proved wrong?

The same truth in other traditions

Stoicism · Marcus Aurelius

He reminded himself to expect obstruction from the very people he was trying to serve, and to go on serving them anyway. The surprise, not the opposition, is what breaks a person.

Tao Te Ching 70

The plainest words go unrecognized and unpractised, and the one who speaks them is thought strange. Being understood was never the measure.

Buddhism · the Dhammapada

Blame comes to the one who speaks and to the one who stays silent, so there is no arrangement of yourself that escapes it. Since you will be criticized regardless, you may as well be truthful.

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