Micah 5-7

Complete Jewish Bible

5 ⁽²⁾But you, Beit-Lechem near Efrat,
so small among the clans of Y’hudah,
out of you will come forth to me
the future ruler of Isra’el,
whose origins are far in the past,
back in ancient times.
²⁽³⁾Therefore he will give up [Isra’el]
only until she who is in labor gives birth.
Then the rest of his kinsmen
will return to the people of Isra’el.
³⁽⁴⁾He will stand and feed his flock
in the strength of Adonai,
in the majesty of the name
of Adonai his God;
and they will stay put, as he grows great
to the very ends of the earth;
⁴⁽⁵⁾and this will be peace.
If Ashur invades our land,
if he overruns our fortresses,
we will raise seven shepherds against him,
eight leaders of men.
⁵⁽⁶⁾They will shepherd the land of Ashur with the sword,
the land of Nimrod at its gates;
and he will rescue us from Ashur
when he invades our land,
when he overruns our borders.
⁶⁽⁷⁾Then the remnant of Ya‘akov,
surrounded by many peoples,
will be like dew from Adonai,
like showers on the grass,
which doesn’t wait for a man
or expect anything from mortals.
⁷⁽⁸⁾The remnant of Ya‘akov among the nations,
surrounded by many peoples,
will be like a lion among forest animals,
like a young lion among flocks of sheep —
if it passes through, tramples and tears to pieces,
there is no one to rescue them.
⁸⁽⁹⁾Your hand will be raised over your enemies;
all your adversaries will be destroyed.

⁹⁽¹⁰⁾“When that day comes,” says Adonai,
“I will cut off your horses from among you
and destroy your chariots.
¹⁰⁽¹¹⁾I will cut off the cities of your land
and lay waste your strongholds.
¹¹⁽¹²⁾I will cut off sorceries from your land;
you will no longer have soothsayers.
¹²⁽¹³⁾I will cut off your carved images
and standing-stones from among you;
no longer will you worship
what your own hands have made.
¹³⁽¹⁴⁾I will pull up your sacred poles from among you
and destroy your enemies.
¹⁴⁽¹⁵⁾I will wreak vengeance in anger and fury
on the nations, because they would not listen.”

6 So listen now to what Adonai says:
“Stand up and state your case to the mountains,
let the hills hear what you have to say.”
²Listen, mountains, to Adonai’s case;
also you enduring rocks that support the earth!
Adonai has a case against his people;
he wants to argue it out with Isra’el:
³“My people, what have I done to you?
How have I wearied you? Answer me!
⁴I brought you up from the land of Egypt.
I redeemed you from a life of slavery.
I sent Moshe, Aharon
and Miryam to lead you.
⁵My people, just remember what Balak
the king of Mo’av had planned,
what Bil‘am the son of B‘or answered him,
[and what happened] between Sheetim and Gilgal —
so that you will understand
the saving deeds of Adonai.”
⁶“With what can I come before Adonai
to bow down before God on high?
Should I come before him with burnt offerings?
with calves in their first year?
⁷Would Adonai take delight in thousands of rams
with ten thousand rivers of olive oil?
Could I give my firstborn to pay for my crimes,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”

⁸Human being, you have already been told
what is good, what Adonai demands of you —
no more than to act justly, love grace
and walk in purity with your God.

⁹The voice of Adonai! He calls to the city —
and it is wisdom to fear your name —
“Listen to the rod and to him who commissioned it.
¹⁰Are there still ill-gotten gains in the house of the wicked?
still the detestable short eifah-measure?
¹¹Should I declare innocent wicked scales
and a bag of fraudulent weights?
¹²The rich men there are full of violence,
the inhabitants tell lies,
with tongues of deceit in their mouths.

¹³“Therefore, I am starting to strike you down,
to destroy you because of your sins.
¹⁴You will eat but not be satisfied,
with hunger gnawing inside you.
You will conceive but not give birth;
if you do give birth, I will give him to the sword.
¹⁵You will sow but will not reap,
you will press olives but not rub yourself with oil,
likewise you will press grapes but not drink the wine.
¹⁶For you keep the regulations of ‘Omri
and all the practices of the house of Ach’av,
modeling yourselves on their advice.
Therefore I will make you an object of horror,
the inhabitants of this city a cause for contempt;
you will suffer the insults aimed at my people.”

7 Woe to me! for I have become
like the leavings of summer fruit,
like the gleanings when the vintage is finished —
there isn’t a cluster worth eating,
no early-ripened fig that appeals to me.
²The godly have been destroyed from the land,
there is no one upright among humankind.
They all lie in wait for blood,
each hunts his brother with a net.
³Their hands do evil well.
The prince makes his request,
the judge grants it for a price,
and the great man expresses his evil desires —
thus they weave it together.
⁴The best of them is a briar,
the most upright worse than a thorn hedge.
The time of your watchmen — of your punishment — has come;
now they will be confused.
⁵Don’t trust in your neighbor;
don’t put confidence in a close friend;
shut the gates of your mouth even from [your wife],
lying there with you in bed.
⁶For a son insults his father,
a daughter rises against her mother,
daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law —
a person’s enemies are the members of his own household.

⁷But as for me, I will look to Adonai,
I will wait for the God of my salvation;
my God will hear me.
⁸Enemies of mine, don’t gloat over me!
Although I have fallen, I will rise;
though I live in the dark, Adonai is my light.
⁹I will endure Adonai’s rage,
because I sinned against him;
until he pleads my cause
and judges in my favor.
Then he will bring me out to the light,
and I will see his justice.
¹⁰My enemies will see it too,
and shame will cover those
who said to me, “Where is Adonai your God?”
I will gloat over them,
as they are trampled underfoot
like mud in the streets.

¹¹That will be the day for rebuilding your walls,
a day for expanding your territory,
¹²a day when [your] people will come [back] to you
from Ashur and from the cities of Egypt,
from Egypt and from as far as the Euphrates River,
and from sea to sea, and from mountain to mountain.
¹³The earth will be desolate for those living in it,
as a result of their deeds.
¹⁴Shepherd your people with your staff,
the flock that belongs to you,
who live alone, like a forest
in the middle of a fertile pasture.
Let them feed in Bashan and Gil‘ad,
as they did in days of old.
¹⁵“As in the days when you came out of Egypt,
I will show them wonders.”
¹⁶The nations will see and be put to shame,
in spite of all their power.
They will cover their mouths with their hands,
and their ears will be deafened.
¹⁷They will lick the dust like snakes;
they will emerge from their fortresses trembling
like reptiles that crawl about on the earth;
they will come with fear to Adonai our God,
afraid because of you.

¹⁸Who is a God like you,
pardoning the sin and overlooking the crimes
of the remnant of his heritage?
He does not retain his anger forever,
because he delights in grace.
¹⁹He will again have compassion on us,
he will subdue our iniquities.
You will throw all their sins
into the depths of the sea.
²⁰You will show truth to Ya‘akov
and grace to Avraham,
as you have sworn to our ancestors
since days of long ago.

Hebrews 7

Complete Jewish Bible

7 This Malki-Tzedek, king of Shalem, a cohen of God Ha‘Elyon, met Avraham on his way back from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him; ²also Avraham gave him a tenth of everything.^[a]

Now first of all, by translation of his name, he is “king of righteousness”; and then he is also king of Shalem, which means “king of peace.”

³There is no record of his father, mother, ancestry, birth or death; rather, like the Son of God, he continues as a cohen for all time.

⁴Just think how great he was! Even the Patriarch Avraham gave him a tenth of the choicest spoils. ⁵Now the descendants of Levi who became cohanim have a commandment in the Torah to take a tenth of the income of the people, that is, from their own brothers, despite the fact that they too are descended from Avraham. ⁶But Malki-Tzedek, even though he was not descended from Levi, took a tenth from Avraham.

Also, he blessed Avraham, the man who received God’s promises; ⁷and it is beyond all dispute that the one who blesses has higher status than the one who receives the blessing.

⁸Moreover, in the case of the cohanim, the tenth is received by men who die; while in the case of Malki-Tzedek, it is received by someone who is testified to be still alive.

⁹One might go even further and say that Levi, who himself receives tenths, paid a tenth through Avraham; ¹⁰inasmuch as he was still in his ancestor Avraham’s body when Malki-Tzedek met him.

¹¹Therefore, if it had been possible to reach the goal through the system of cohanim derived from Levi (since in connection with it, the people were given the Torah), what need would there have been for another, different kind of cohen, the one spoken of as to be compared with Malki-Tzedek and not to be compared with Aharon? ¹²For if the system of cohanim is transformed, there must of necessity occur a transformation of Torah. ¹³The one about whom these things are said belongs to another tribe, from which no one has ever served at the altar; ¹⁴for everyone knows that our Lord arose out of Y’hudah, and that Moshe said nothing about this tribe when he spoke about cohanim.

¹⁵It becomes even clearer if a “different kind of cohen,” one like Malki-Tzedek, arises, ¹⁶one who became a cohen not by virtue of a rule in the Torah concerning physical descent, but by virtue of the power of an indestructible life. ¹⁷For it is stated,

“You are a cohen FOREVER,
to be compared with Malki-Tzedek.”^[b]

¹⁸Thus, on the one hand, the earlier rule is set aside because of its weakness and inefficacy ¹⁹(for the Torah did not bring anything to the goal); and, on the other hand, a hope of something better is introduced, through which we are drawing near to God.

²⁰What is more, God swore an oath. For no oath was sworn in connection with those who become cohanim now; ²¹but Yeshua became a cohen by the oath which God swore when he said to him,

“Adonai has sworn and will not change his mind,
‘You are a cohen forever.’”^[c]

²²Also this shows how much better is the covenant of which Yeshua has become guarantor.

²³Moreover, the present cohanim are many in number, because they are prevented by death from continuing in office. ²⁴But because he lives forever, his position as cohen does not pass on to someone else; ²⁵and consequently, he is totally able to deliver those who approach God through him; since he is alive forever and thus forever able to intercede on their behalf.

²⁶This is the kind of cohen gadol that meets our need — holy, without evil, without stain, set apart from sinners and raised higher than the heavens; ²⁷one who does not have the daily necessity, like the other cohanim g’dolim, of offering up sacrifices first for their own sins and only then for those of the people; because he offered one sacrifice, once and for all, by offering up himself. ²⁸For the Torah appoints as cohanim g’dolim men who have weakness; but the text which speaks about the swearing of the oath, a text written later than the Torah, appoints a Son who has been brought to the goal forever.