Parashah 46: ‘Ekev (Because) 7:12–11:25

¹² “Because you are listening to these rulings, keeping and obeying them, Adonai your God will keep with you the covenant and mercy that he swore to your ancestors. ¹³ He will love you, bless you and increase your numbers; he will also bless the fruit of your body and the fruit of your ground — your grain, wine, olive oil and the young of your cattle and sheep — in the land he swore to your ancestors that he would give you. ¹⁴ You will be blessed more than all other peoples; there will not be a sterile male or female among you, and the same with your livestock. ¹⁵ Adonai will remove all illness from you — he will not afflict you with any of Egypt’s dreadful diseases, which you have known; instead, he will lay them on those who hate you. ¹⁶ You are to devour all the peoples that Adonai your God hands over to you — show them no pity, and do not serve their gods, because that will become a trap for you. ¹⁷ If you think to yourselves, ‘These nations outnumber us; how can we dispossess them?’ ¹⁸ nevertheless, you are not to be afraid of them; you are to remember well what Adonai your God did to Pharaoh and all of Egypt — ¹⁹ the great ordeals which you yourself saw, and the signs, wonders, strong hand and outstretched arm by which Adonai your God brought you out. Adonai will do the same to all the peoples of whom you are afraid. ²⁰ Moreover, Adonai your God will send the hornet among them until those who are left and those who hide themselves perish ahead of you. ²¹ You are not to be frightened of them, because Adonai your God is there with you, a God great and fearsome. ²² Adonai your God will expel those nations ahead of you little by little; you can’t put an end to them all at once, or the wild animals will become too numerous for you. ²³ Nevertheless, Adonai your God will give them over to you, sending one disaster after another upon them until they have been destroyed. ²⁴ He will hand their kings over to you, and you will wipe out their name from under heaven; none of them will be able to stand against you until you have destroyed them. ²⁵ You are to burn up completely the carved statues of their gods. Don’t be greedy for the silver or gold on them; don’t take it with you, or you will be trapped by it; for it is abhorrent to Adonai your God. ²⁶ Don’t bring something abhorrent into your house, or you will share in the curse that is on it; instead, you are to detest it completely, loathe it utterly; for it is set apart for destruction.

8 “All the mitzvot I am giving you today you are to take care to obey, so that you will live, increase your numbers, enter and take possession of the land Adonai swore about to your ancestors. ² You are to remember everything of the way in which Adonai led you these forty years in the desert, humbling and testing you in order to know what was in your heart — whether you would obey his mitzvot or not. ³ He humbled you, allowing you to become hungry, and then fed you with man, which neither you nor your ancestors had ever known, to make you understand that a person does not live on food alone but on everything that comes from the mouth of Adonai. ⁴ During these forty years the clothing you were wearing didn’t grow old, and your feet didn’t swell up. ⁵ Think deeply about it: Adonai was disciplining you, just as a man disciplines his child. ⁶ So obey the mitzvot of Adonai your God, living as he directs and fearing him. ⁷ For Adonai your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with streams, springs and water welling up from the depths in valleys and on hillsides. ⁸ It is a land of wheat and barley, grapevines, fig trees and pomegranates; a land of olive oil and honey; ⁹ a land where you will eat food in abundance and lack nothing in it; a land where the stones contain iron and the hills can be mined for copper. ¹⁰ So you will eat and be satisfied, and you will bless Adonai your God for the good land he has given you.

(ii) ¹¹ “Be careful not to forget Adonai your God by not obeying his mitzvot, rulings and regulations that I am giving you today. ¹² Otherwise, after you have eaten and are satisfied, built fine houses and lived in them, ¹³ and increased your herds, flocks, silver, gold and everything else you own, ¹⁴ you will become proud-hearted. Forgetting Adonai your God — who brought you out of the land of Egypt, where you lived as slaves; ¹⁵ who led you through the vast and fearsome desert, with its poisonous snakes, scorpions and waterless, thirsty ground; who brought water out of flint rock for you; ¹⁶ who fed you in the desert with man, unknown to your ancestors; all the while humbling and testing you in order to do you good in the end — ¹⁷ you will think to yourself, ‘My own power and the strength of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.’ ¹⁸ No, you are to remember Adonai your God, because it is he who is giving you the power to get wealth, in order to confirm his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as is happening even today. ¹⁹ If you forget Adonai your God, follow other gods and serve and worship them, I am warning you in advance today that you will certainly perish. ²⁰ You will perish just like the nations that Adonai is causing to perish ahead of you, because you will not have heeded the voice of Adonai your God.”

9 “Listen, Isra’el! You are to cross the Yarden today, to go in and dispossess nations greater and stronger than you, great cities fortified up to the sky; ² a people great and tall, the ‘Anakim, whom you know about and of whom you have heard it said, ‘Who can stand before the descendants of ‘Anak?’ ³ Therefore understand today that Adonai your God will himself cross ahead of you as a devouring fire; he will destroy them and bring them down before you. Thus will you drive them out and cause them to perish quickly, as Adonai has said to you.

(iii) ⁴ “Don’t think to yourself, after your God has pushed them out ahead of you, ‘It is to reward my righteousness that Adonai has brought me in to take possession of this land.’ No, it is because these nations have been so wicked that Adonai is driving them out ahead of you. ⁵ It is not because of your righteousness, or because your heart is so upright, that you go in to take possession of their land; but to punish the wickedness of these nations that Adonai your God is driving them out ahead of you, and also to confirm the word which Adonai swore to your ancestors, Avraham, Yitz’chak and Ya‘akov. ⁶ Therefore, understand that it is not for your righteousness that Adonai your God is giving you this good land to possess.

“For you are a stiffnecked people! ⁷ Remember, don’t forget, how you made Adonai your God angry in the desert. From the day you left the land of Egypt till you arrived at this place, you have been rebelling against Adonai. ⁸ Also in Horev you made Adonai angry — Adonai was angry enough with you to destroy you! ⁹ I had gone up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets on which was written the covenant Adonai had made with you. I stayed on the mountain forty days and nights without eating food or drinking water. ¹⁰ Then Adonai gave me the two stone tablets inscribed by the finger of God; and on them was written every word Adonai had said to you from the fire on the mountain the day of the assembly. ¹¹ Yes, after forty days and nights Adonai gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant. ¹² Then Adonai said to me, ‘Get up, and hurry down from here, because your people, whom you led out of Egypt, have become corrupt. So quickly have they turned aside from the way I ordered them to follow! They have made themselves a metal image!’ ¹³ Moreover, Adonai said to me, ‘I have seen this people, and what a stiffnecked people they are! ¹⁴ Let me alone, so that I can put an end to them and blot out their name from under heaven! I will make out of you a nation bigger and stronger than they.’ ¹⁵ I came down from the mountain. The mountain was blazing fire, and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. ¹⁶ I looked, and there, you had sinned against Adonai your God! You had made yourselves a metal calf, you had turned aside quickly from the way Adonai had ordered you to follow. ¹⁷ I seized the two tablets, threw them out of my two hands and broke them before your eyes. ¹⁸ Then I fell down before Adonai, as I had the first time, for forty days and nights, during which time I neither ate food nor drank water, all because of the sin you committed by doing what was evil in the sight of Adonai and thus provoking him. ¹⁹ I was terrified that because of how angry Adonai was at you, of how heatedly displeased he was, that he would destroy you. But Adonai listened to me that time too. ²⁰ In addition, Adonai was very angry with Aharon and would have destroyed him; but I prayed for Aharon also at the same time. ²¹ I took your sin, the calf you had made, and burned it up in the fire, beat it to pieces, and ground it up still smaller, until it was as fine as dust; then I threw its dust into the stream coming down from the mountain.

²² “Again at Tav‘erah, Massah and Kivrot-HaTa’avah you made Adonai angry; ²³ and when Adonai sent you off from Kadesh-Barnea by saying, ‘Go up and take possession of the land I have given you,’ you rebelled against the order of Adonai your God — you neither trusted him nor heeded what he said. ²⁴ You have been rebelling against Adonai from the day I first knew you!

²⁵ “So I fell down before Adonai for those forty days and nights; and I lay there; because Adonai had said he would destroy you. ²⁶ I prayed to Adonai ; I said, ‘Adonai Elohim! Don’t destroy your people, your inheritance! You redeemed them through your greatness, you brought them out of Egypt with a strong hand! ²⁷ Remember your servants Avraham, Yitz’chak and Ya‘akov! Don’t focus on the stubbornness of this people, or on their wickedness or on their sin. ²⁸ Otherwise, the land you brought us out of will say, “It is because Adonai wasn’t able to bring them into the land he promised them and because he hated them that he has brought them out to kill them in the desert.” ²⁹ But in fact they are your people, your inheritance, whom you brought out by your great power and your outstretched arm.’

10 (iv) “At that time Adonai said to me, ‘Cut yourself two stone tablets like the first ones, come up to me on the mountain, and make yourself an ark of wood. ² I will inscribe on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke; and you are to put them in the ark.’ ³ So I made an ark of acacia-wood and cut two stone tablets like the first, then climbed the mountain with the two tablets in my hand. ⁴ He inscribed the tablets with the same inscription as before, the Ten Words which Adonai proclaimed to you from the fire on the mountain the day of the assembly; and Adonai gave them to me. ⁵ I turned, came down the mountain and put the tablets in the ark I had made; and there they remain; as Adonai ordered me.

⁶ “The people of Isra’el traveled from the wells of B’nei-Ya‘akan to Moserah, where Aharon died and was buried; and El‘azar his son took his place, serving in the office of cohen. ⁷ From there they traveled to Gudgod, and from Gudgod to Yotvatah, a region with running streams. ⁸ At that time Adonai set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark for the covenant of Adonai and to stand before Adonai to serve him and to bless in his name, as they still do today. ⁹ This is why Levi has no share or inheritance with his brothers; Adonai is his inheritance, as Adonai your God had said to him.

¹⁰ “I stayed on the mountain forty days and nights, as previously; and Adonai listened to me that time too — Adonai would not destroy you. ¹¹ Then Adonai said to me, ‘Get up, and go on your way at the head of the people, so that they can enter and take possession of the land I swore to their ancestors that I would give them.’

(v) ¹² “So now, Isra’el, all that Adonai your God asks from you is to fear Adonai your God, follow all his ways, love him and serve Adonai your God with all your heart and all your being; ¹³ to obey, for your own good, the mitzvot and regulations of Adonai which I am giving you today. ¹⁴ See, the sky, the heaven beyond the sky, the earth and everything on it all belong to Adonai your God. ¹⁵ Only Adonai took enough pleasure in your ancestors to love them and choose their descendants after them — yourselves — above all peoples, as he still does today. ¹⁶ Therefore, circumcise the foreskin of your heart; and don’t be stiffnecked any longer! ¹⁷ For Adonai your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, mighty and awesome God, who has no favorites and accepts no bribes. ¹⁸ He secures justice for the orphan and the widow; he loves the foreigner, giving him food and clothing. ¹⁹ Therefore you are to love the foreigner, since you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. ²⁰ You are to fear Adonai your God, serve him, cling to him and swear by his name. ²¹ He is your praise, and he is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things, which you have seen with your own eyes. ²² Your ancestors went down into Egypt with only seventy people, but now Adonai your God has made your numbers as many as the stars in the sky!

11 “Therefore, you are to love Adonai your God and always obey his commission, regulations, rulings and mitzvot. ² Today it is you I am addressing — not your children, who haven’t known or experienced the discipline of Adonai your God, his greatness, his strong hand, his outstretched arm, ³ his signs and his actions which he did in Egypt to Pharaoh the king of Egypt and to his entire country. ⁴ They didn’t experience what he did to Egypt’s army, horses and chariots — how Adonai overwhelmed them with the water of the Sea of Suf as they were pursuing you, so that they remain destroyed to this day. ⁵ They didn’t experience what he kept doing for you in the desert until you arrived at this place; ⁶ or what he did to Datan and Aviram, the sons of Eli’av the descendant of Re’uven — how the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, along with their households, tents and every living thing in their company, there in front of all Isra’el. ⁷ But you have seen with your own eyes all these great deeds of Adonai. ⁸ Therefore, you are to keep every mitzvah I am giving you today; so that you will be strong enough to go in and take possession of the land you are crossing over to conquer; ⁹ and so that you will live long in the land Adonai swore to give to your ancestors and their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey.

(vi) ¹⁰ “For the land you are entering in order to take possession of it isn’t like the land of Egypt. There you would sow your seed and had to use your feet to operate its irrigation system, as in a vegetable garden. ¹¹ But the land you are crossing over to take possession of is a land of hills and valleys, which soaks up water when rain falls from the sky. ¹² It is a land Adonai your God cares for. The eyes of Adonai your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.

¹³ “So if you listen carefully to my mitzvot which I am giving you today, to love Adonai your God and serve him with all your heart and all your being; ¹⁴ then, [says Adonai,] ‘I will give your land its rain at the right seasons, including the early fall rains and the late spring rains; so that you can gather in your wheat, new wine and olive oil; ¹⁵ and I will give your fields grass for your livestock; with the result that you will eat and be satisfied.’ ¹⁶ But be careful not to let yourselves be seduced, so that you turn aside, serving other gods and worshipping them. ¹⁷ If you do, the anger of Adonai will blaze up against you. He will shut up the sky, so that there will be no rain. The ground will not yield its produce, and you will quickly pass away from the good land Adonai is giving you. ¹⁸ Therefore, you are to store up these words of mine in your heart and in all your being; tie them on your hand as a sign; put them at the front of a headband around your forehead; ¹⁹ teach them carefully to your children, talking about them when you sit at home, when you are traveling on the road, when you lie down and when you get up; ²⁰ and write them on the door-frames of your house and on your gates — ²¹ so that you and your children will live long on the land Adonai swore to your ancestors that he would give them for as long as there is sky above the earth.

(vii & Maftir) ²² “For if you will take care to obey all these mitzvot I am giving you, to do them, to love Adonai your God, to follow all his ways and to cling to him, ²³ then Adonai will expel all these nations ahead of you; and you will dispossess nations bigger and stronger than you are. ²⁴ Wherever the sole of your foot steps will be yours; your territory will extend from the desert to the L’vanon and from the River, the Euphrates River, to the Western Sea. ²⁵ No one will be able to withstand you; Adonai your God will place the fear and dread of you on all the land you step on, as he told you.

Haftarah ‘Ekev: Yesha‘yahu (Isaiah) 49:14–51:3

B’rit Hadashah suggested readings for Parashah ‘Ekev: Mattityahu (Matthew) 4:1–11; Luke 4:1–13; Ya‘akov (James) 5:7–11

⁷ So, brothers, be patient until the Lord returns. See how the farmer waits for the precious “fruit of the earth” — he is patient over it until it receives the fall and spring rains.^{[a] 8} You too, be patient; keep up your courage; for the Lord’s return is near. ⁹ Don’t grumble against one another, brothers, so that you won’t come under condemnation — look! the Judge is standing at the door! ¹⁰ As an example of suffering mistreatment and being patient, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of Adonai. ¹¹ Look, we regard those who persevered as blessed. You have heard of the perseverance of Iyov, and you know what the purpose of Adonai was, that Adonai is very compassionate and merciful.^[b]

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⁸ By trusting, Avraham obeyed, after being called to go out^[a] to a place which God would give him as a possession; indeed, he went out without knowing where he was going. ⁹ By trusting, he lived as a temporary resident in the Land of the promise, as if it were not his, staying in tents with Yitz’chak and Ya‘akov, who were to receive what was promised along with him. ¹⁰ For he was looking forward to the city with permanent foundations, of which the architect and builder is God.

¹¹ By trusting, he received potency to father a child, even when he was past the age for it, as was Sarah herself; because he regarded the One who had made the promise as trustworthy. ¹² Therefore this one man, who was virtually dead, fathered descendants

¹³ All these people kept on trusting until they died, without receiving what had been promised. They had only seen it and welcomed it from a distance, while acknowledging that they were aliens and temporary residents on the earth.^[c]

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⁶ Yeshua said, “I AM the Way — and the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father except through me.

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15 “I am the real vine, and my Father is the gardener. ² Every branch which is part of me but fails to bear fruit, he cuts off; and every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes, so that it may bear more fruit. ³ Right now, because of the word which I have spoken to you, you are pruned. ⁴ Stay united with me, as I will with you — for just as the branch can’t put forth fruit by itself apart from the vine, so you can’t bear fruit apart from me.

⁵ “I am the vine and you are the branches. Those who stay united with me, and I with them, are the ones who bear much fruit; because apart from me you can’t do a thing. ⁶ Unless a person remains united with me, he is thrown away like a branch and dries up. Such branches are gathered and thrown into the fire, where they are burned up.

⁷ “If you remain united with me, and my words with you, then ask whatever you want, and it will happen for you. ⁸ This is how my Father is glorified — in your bearing much fruit; this is how you will prove to be my talmidim.

⁹ “Just as my Father has loved me, I too have loved you; so stay in my love. ¹⁰ If you keep my commands, you will stay in my love — just as I have kept my Father’s commands and stay in his love. ¹¹ I have said this to you so that my joy may be in you, and your joy be complete.

¹² “This is my command: that you keep on loving each other just as I have loved you. ¹³ No one has greater love than a person who lays down his life for his friends. ¹⁴ You are my friends, if you do what I command you. ¹⁵ I no longer call you slaves, because a slave doesn’t know what his master is about; but I have called you friends, because everything I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. ¹⁶ You did not choose me, I chose you; and I have commissioned you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last; so that whatever you ask from the Father in my name he may give you. ¹⁷ This is what I command you: keep loving each other!

¹⁸ “If the world hates you, understand that it hated me first. ¹⁹ If you belonged to the world, the world would have loved its own. But because you do not belong to the world — on the contrary, I have picked you out of the world — therefore the world hates you. ²⁰ Remember what I told you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you too; if they kept my word, they will keep yours too. ²¹ But they will do all this to you on my account, because they don’t know the One who sent me.

²² “If I had not come and spoken to them, they wouldn’t be guilty of sin; but now, they have no excuse for their sin. ²³ Whoever hates me hates my Father also. ²⁴ If I had not done in their presence works which no one else ever did, they would not be guilty of sin; but now, they have seen them and have hated both me and my Father. ²⁵ But this has happened in order to fulfill the words in their Torah which read, ‘They hated me for no reason at all.’^[a]

²⁶ “When the Counselor comes, whom I will send you from the Father — the Spirit of Truth, who keeps going out from the Father — he will testify on my behalf. ²⁷ And you testify too, because you have been with me from the outset.

16 “I have told you these things so that you won’t be caught by surprise. ² They will ban you from the synagogue; in fact, the time will come when anyone who kills you will think he is serving God! ³ They will do these things because they have understood neither the Father nor me. ⁴ But I have told you this, so that when the time comes for it to happen, you will remember that I told you. I didn’t tell you this at first, because I was with you. ⁵ But now I am going to the One who sent me.

“Not one of you is asking me, ‘Where are you going?’ ⁶ Instead, because I have said these things to you, you are overcome with grief. ⁷ But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I don’t go away, the comforting Counselor will not come to you. However, if I do go, I will send him to you.

⁸ “When he comes, he will show that the world is wrong about sin, about righteousness and about judgment — ⁹ about sin, in that people don’t put their trust in me; ¹⁰ about righteousness, in that I am going to the Father and you will no longer see me; ¹¹ about judgment, in that the ruler of this world has been judged.

¹² “I still have many things to tell you, but you can’t bear them now. ¹³ However, when the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own initiative but will say only what he hears. He will also announce to you the events of the future. ¹⁴ He will glorify me, because he will receive from what is mine and announce it to you. ¹⁵ Everything the Father has is mine; this is why I said that he receives from what is mine and will announce it to you.

¹⁶ “In a little while, you will see me no more; then, a little while later, you will see me.” ¹⁷ At this, some of the talmidim said to one another, “What is this that he’s telling us, ‘In a little while, you won’t see me; then, a little while later, you will see me’? and, ‘I am going to the Father’?” ¹⁸ They went on saying, “What is this ‘little while’? We don’t understand what he’s talking about.”

¹⁹ Yeshua knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, “Are you asking each other what I meant by saying, ‘In a little while, you won’t see me; and then, a little while later, you will see me’? ²⁰ Yes, it’s true. I tell you that you will sob and mourn, and the world will rejoice; you will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. ²¹ When a woman is giving birth, she is in pain; because her time has come. But when the baby is born, she forgets her suffering out of joy that a child has come into the world. ²² So you do indeed feel grief now, but I am going to see you again. Then your hearts will be full of joy, and no one will take your joy away from you.

²³ “When that day comes, you won’t ask anything of me! Yes, indeed! I tell you that whatever you ask from the Father, he will give you in my name. ²⁴ Till now you haven’t asked for anything in my name. Keep asking, and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.

²⁵ “I have said these things to you with the help of illustrations; however, a time is coming when I will no longer speak indirectly but will talk about the Father in plain language. ²⁶ When that day comes, you will ask in my name. I am not telling you that I will pray to the Father on your behalf, ²⁷ for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.

²⁸ “I came from the Father and have come into the world; again, I am leaving the world and returning to the Father.”

²⁹ The talmidim said to him, “Look, you’re talking plainly right now, you’re not speaking indirectly at all. ³⁰ Now we know that you know everything, and that you don’t need to have people put their questions into words. This makes us believe that you came from God.”

³¹ Yeshua answered, “Now you do believe. ³² But a time is coming — indeed it has come already — when you will be scattered, each one looking out for himself; and you will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone; because the Father is with me.

³³ “I have said these things to you so that, united with me, you may have shalom. In the world, you have tsuris. But be brave! I have conquered the world!”

17 After Yeshua had said these things, he looked up toward heaven and said, “Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, so that the Son may glorify you — ² just as you gave him authority over all mankind, so that he might give eternal life to all those whom you have given him. ³ And eternal life is this: to know you, the one true God, and him whom you sent, Yeshua the Messiah.

⁴ “I glorified you on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. ⁵ Now, Father, glorify me alongside yourself. Give me the same glory I had with you before the world existed.

⁶ “I made your name known to the people you gave me out of the world. They were yours, you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. ⁷ Now they know that everything you have given me is from you, ⁸ because the words you gave me I have given to them, and they have received them. They have really come to know that I came from you, and they have come to trust that you sent me.

⁹ “I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given to me, because they are yours. ¹⁰ Indeed, all I have is yours, and all you have is mine, and in them I have been glorified. ¹¹ Now I am no longer in the world. They are in the world, but I am coming to you. Holy Father, guard them by the power of your name, which you have given to me, so that they may be one, just as we are. ¹² When I was with them, I guarded them by the power of your name, which you have given to me; yes, I kept watch over them; and not one of them was destroyed (except the one meant for destruction, so that the Tanakh might be fulfilled). ¹³ But now, I am coming to you; and I say these things while I am still in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves.

¹⁴ “I have given them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world — just as I myself do not belong to the world. ¹⁵ I don’t ask you to take them out of the world, but to protect them from the Evil One. ¹⁶ They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. ¹⁷ Set them apart for holiness by means of the truth — your word is truth. ¹⁸ Just as you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. ¹⁹ On their behalf I am setting myself apart for holiness, so that they too may be set apart for holiness by means of the truth.

²⁰ “I pray not only for these, but also for those who will trust in me because of their word, ²¹ that they may all be one. Just as you, Father, are united with me and I with you, I pray that they may be united with us, so that the world may believe that you sent me. ²² The glory which you have given to me, I have given to them; so that they may be one, just as we are one — ²³ I united with them and you with me, so that they may be completely one, and the world thus realize that you sent me, and that you have loved them just as you have loved me.

²⁴ “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am; so that they may see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. ²⁵ Righteous Father, the world has not known you, but I have known you, and these people have known that you sent me. ²⁶ I made your name known to them, and I will continue to make it known; so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I myself may be united with them.”

18 After Yeshua had said all this, he went out with his talmidim across the stream that flows in winter through the Vadi Kidron, to a spot where there was a grove of trees; and he and his talmidim went into it. ² Now Y’hudah, who was betraying him, also knew the place; because Yeshua had often met there with his talmidim. ³ So Y’hudah went there, taking with him a detachment of Roman soldiers and some Temple guards provided by the head cohanim and the P’rushim; they carried weapons, lanterns and torches. ⁴ Yeshua, who knew everything that was going to happen to him, went out and asked them, “Whom do you want?” ⁵ “Yeshua from Natzeret,” they answered. He said to them, “I AM.” Also standing with them was Y’hudah, the one who was betraying him. ⁶ When he said, “I AM,” they went backward from him and fell to the ground. ⁷ So he inquired of them once more, “Whom do you want?” and they said, “Yeshua from Natzeret.” ⁸ “I told you, ‘I AM,’” answered Yeshua, “so if I’m the one you want, let these others go.” ⁹ This happened so that what he had said might be fulfilled, “I have not lost one of those you gave me.”

¹⁰ Then Shim‘on Kefa, who had a sword, drew it and struck the slave of the cohen hagadol, cutting off his right ear; the slave’s name was Melekh. ¹¹ Yeshua said to Kefa, “Put your sword back in its scabbard! This is the cup the Father has given me; am I not to drink it?”

¹² So the detachment of Roman soldiers and their captain, together with the Temple Guard of the Judeans, arrested Yeshua, tied him up, ¹³ and took him first to ‘Anan, the father-in-law of Kayafa, who was cohen gadol that fateful year. ¹⁴ (It was Kayafa who had advised the Judeans that it would be good for one man to die on behalf of the people.) ¹⁵ Shim‘on Kefa and another talmid followed Yeshua. The second talmid was known to the cohen hagadol, and he went with Yeshua into the courtyard of the cohen hagadol; ¹⁶ but Kefa stood outside by the gate. So the other talmid, the one known to the cohen hagadol, went back out and spoke to the woman on duty at the gate, then brought Kefa inside. ¹⁷ The woman at the gate said to Kefa, “Aren’t you another of that man’s talmidim?” He said, “No, I’m not.” ¹⁸ Now the slaves and guards had lit a fire because it was cold, and they were standing around it warming themselves; Kefa joined them and stood warming himself too.

¹⁹ The cohen hagadol questioned Yeshua about his talmidim and about what he taught. ²⁰ Yeshua answered, “I have spoken quite openly to everyone; I have always taught in a synagogue or in the Temple where all Jews meet together, and I have said nothing in secret; ²¹ so why are you questioning me? Question the ones who heard what I said to them; look, they know what I said.” ²² At these words, one of the guards standing by slapped Yeshua in the face and said, “This is how you talk to the cohen hagadol?” ²³ Yeshua answered him, “If I said something wrong, state publicly what was wrong; but if I was right, why are you hitting me?” ²⁴ So ‘Anan sent him, still tied up, to Kayafa the cohen hagadol.

²⁵ Meanwhile, Shim‘on Kefa was standing and warming himself. They said to him, “Aren’t you also one of his talmidim?” He denied it, saying, “No, I am not.” ²⁶ One of the slaves of the cohen hagadol, a relative of the man whose ear Kefa had cut off, said, “Didn’t I see you with him in the grove of trees?” ²⁷ So again Kefa denied it, and instantly a rooster crowed.

²⁸ They led Yeshua from Kayafa to the governor’s headquarters. By now it was early morning. They did not enter the headquarters building because they didn’t want to become ritually defiled and thus unable to eat the Pesach meal. ²⁹ So Pilate went outside to them and said, “What charge are you bringing against this man?” ³⁰ They answered, “If he hadn’t done something wrong, we wouldn’t have brought him to you.” ³¹ Pilate said to them, “You take him and judge him according to your own law.” The Judeans replied, “We don’t have the legal power to put anyone to death.” ³² This was so that what Yeshua had said, about how he was going to die, might be fulfilled.

³³ So Pilate went back into the headquarters, called Yeshua and said to him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” ³⁴ Yeshua answered, “Are you asking this on your own, or have other people told you about me?” ³⁵ Pilate replied, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and head cohanim have handed you over to me; what have you done?” ³⁶ Yeshua answered, “My kingship does not derive its authority from this world’s order of things. If it did, my men would have fought to keep me from being arrested by the Judeans. But my kingship does not come from here.” ³⁷ “So then,” Pilate said to him, “You are a king, after all.” Yeshua answered, “You say I am a king. The reason I have been born, the reason I have come into the world, is to bear witness to the truth. Every one who belongs to the truth listens to me.” ³⁸ Pilate asked him, “What is truth?”

Having said this, Pilate went outside again to the Judeans and told them, “I don’t find any case against him. ³⁹ However, you have a custom that at Passover I set one prisoner free. Do you want me to set free for you the ‘king of the Jews’?” ⁴⁰ But they yelled back, “No, not this man but Bar-Abba!” (Bar-Abba was a revolutionary.)

19 Pilate then took Yeshua and had him flogged. ² The soldiers twisted thorn-branches into a crown and placed it on his head, put a purple robe on him, ³ and went up to him, saying over and over, “Hail, ‘king of the Jews’!” and hitting him in the face.

⁴ Pilate went outside once more and said to the crowd, “Look, I’m bringing him out to you to get you to understand that I find no case against him.” ⁵ So Yeshua came out, wearing the thorn-branch crown and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Look at the man!” ⁶ When the head cohanim and the Temple guards saw him they shouted, “Put him to death on the stake! Put him to death on the stake!” Pilate said to them, “You take him out yourselves and put him to death on the stake, because I don’t find any case against him.” ⁷ The Judeans answered him, “We have a law; according to that law, he ought to be put to death, because he made himself out to be the Son of God.” ⁸ On hearing this, Pilate became even more frightened.

⁹ He went back into the headquarters and asked Yeshua, “Where are you from?” But Yeshua didn’t answer. ¹⁰ So Pilate said to him, “You refuse to speak to me? Don’t you understand that it is in my power either to set you free or to have you executed on the stake?” ¹¹ Yeshua answered, “You would have no power over me if it hadn’t been given to you from above; this is why the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.” ¹² On hearing this, Pilate tried to find a way to set him free; but the Judeans shouted, “If you set this man free, it means you’re not a ‘Friend of the Emperor’! Everyone who claims to be a king is opposing the Emperor!” ¹³ When Pilate heard what they were saying, he brought Yeshua outside and sat down on the judge’s seat in the place called The Pavement (in Aramaic, Gabta); ¹⁴ it was about noon on Preparation Day for Pesach. He said to the Judeans, “Here’s your king!” ¹⁵ They shouted, “Take him away! Take him away! Put him to death on the stake!” Pilate said to them, “You want me to execute your king on a stake?” The head cohanim answered, “We have no king but the Emperor.” ¹⁶ Then Pilate handed Yeshua over to them to have him put to death on the stake.

So they took charge of Yeshua. ¹⁷ Carrying the stake himself he went out to the place called Skull (in Aramaic, Gulgolta). ¹⁸ There they nailed him to the stake along with two others, one on either side, with Yeshua in the middle. ¹⁹ Pilate also had a notice written and posted on the stake; it read,

YESHUA FROM NATZERET

THE KING OF THE JEWS

²⁰ Many of the Judeans read this notice, because the place where Yeshua was put on the stake was close to the city; and it had been written in Hebrew, in Latin and in Greek. ²¹ The Judeans’ head cohanim therefore said to Pilate, “Don’t write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but ‘He said, “I am King of the Jews.”’” ²² Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”

²³ When the soldiers had nailed Yeshua to the stake, they took his clothes and divided them into four shares, a share for each soldier, with the under-robe left over. Now the under-robe was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom; ²⁴ so they said to one another, “We shouldn’t tear it in pieces; let’s draw for it.” This happened in order to fulfill the words from the Tanakh,

This is why the soldiers did these things.

²⁵ Nearby Yeshua’s execution stake stood his mother, his mother’s sister Miryam the wife of K’lofah, and Miryam from Magdala. ²⁶ When Yeshua saw his mother and the talmid whom he loved standing there, he said to his mother, “Mother, this is your son.” ²⁷ Then he said to the talmid, “This is your mother.” And from that time on, the talmid took her into his own home.

²⁸ After this, knowing that all things had accomplished their purpose, Yeshua, in order to fulfill the words of the Tanakh, said, “I’m thirsty.” ²⁹ A jar full of cheap sour wine was there; so they soaked a sponge in the wine, coated it with oregano leaves and held it up to his mouth. ³⁰ After Yeshua had taken the wine, he said, “It is accomplished!” And, letting his head droop, he delivered up his spirit.

³¹ It was Preparation Day, and the Judeans did not want the bodies to remain on the stake on Shabbat, since it was an especially important Shabbat. So they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies removed. ³² The soldiers came and broke the legs of the first man who had been put on a stake beside Yeshua, then the legs of the other one; ³³ but when they got to Yeshua and saw that he was already dead, they didn’t break his legs. ³⁴ However, one of the soldiers stabbed his side with a spear, and at once blood and water flowed out. ³⁵ The man who saw it has testified about it, and his testimony is true. And he knows that he tells the truth, so you too can trust. ³⁶ For these things happened in order to fulfill this passage of the Tanakh:

³⁷ And again, another passage says,

³⁸ After this, Yosef of Ramatayim, who was a talmid of Yeshua, but a secret one out of fear of the Judeans, asked Pilate if he could have Yeshua’s body. Pilate gave his consent, so Yosef came and took the body away. ³⁹ Also Nakdimon, who at first had gone to see Yeshua by night, came with some seventy pounds of spices — a mixture of myrrh and aloes. ⁴⁰ They took Yeshua’s body and wrapped it up in linen sheets with the spices, in keeping with Judean burial practice. ⁴¹ In the vicinity of where he had been executed was a garden, and in the garden was a new tomb in which no one had ever been buried. ⁴² So, because it was Preparation Day for the Judeans, and because the tomb was close by, that is where they buried Yeshua.

20 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Miryam from Magdala went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. ² So she came running to Shim‘on Kefa and the other talmid, the one Yeshua loved, and said to them, “They’ve taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they’ve put him!”

³ Then Kefa and the other talmid started for the tomb. ⁴ They both ran, but the other talmid outran Kefa and reached the tomb first. ⁵ Stooping down, he saw the linen burial-sheets lying there but did not go in. ⁶ Then, following him, Shim‘on Kefa arrived, entered the tomb and saw the burial-sheets lying there, ⁷ also the cloth that had been around his head, lying not with the sheets but in a separate place and still folded up. ⁸ Then the other talmid, who had arrived at the tomb first, also went in; he saw, and he trusted. ⁹ (They had not yet come to understand that the Tanakh teaches that the Messiah has to rise from the dead.)

¹⁰ So the talmidim returned home, ¹¹ but Miryam stood outside crying. As she cried, she bent down, peered into the tomb, ¹² and saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Yeshua had been, one at the head and one at the feet. ¹³ “Why are you crying?” they asked her. “They took my Lord,” she said to them, “and I don’t know where they have put him.”

¹⁴ As she said this, she turned around and saw Yeshua standing there, but she didn’t know it was he. ¹⁵ Yeshua said to her, “Lady, why are you crying? Whom are you looking for?” Thinking he was the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you’re the one who carried him away, just tell me where you put him; and I’ll go and get him myself.” ¹⁶ Yeshua said to her, “Miryam!” Turning, she cried out to him in Hebrew, “Rabbani!” (that is, “Teacher!”) ¹⁷ “Stop holding onto me,” Yeshua said to her, “because I haven’t yet gone back to the Father. But go to my brothers, and tell them that I am going back to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” ¹⁸ Miryam of Magdala went to the talmidim with the news that she had seen the Lord and that he had told her this.

¹⁹ In the evening that same day, the first day of the week, when the talmidim were gathered together behind locked doors out of fear of the Judeans, Yeshua came, stood in the middle and said, “Shalom aleikhem!” ²⁰ Having greeted them, he showed them his hands and his side. The talmidim were overjoyed to see the Lord. ²¹ “Shalom aleikhem!” Yeshua repeated. “Just as the Father sent me, I myself am also sending you.” ²² Having said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Ruach HaKodesh! ²³ If you forgive someone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you hold them, they are held.”

²⁴ Now T’oma (the name means “twin”), one of the Twelve, was not with them when Yeshua came. ²⁵ When the other talmidim told him, “We have seen the Lord,” he replied, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands, put my finger into the place where the nails were and put my hand into his side, I refuse to believe it.”

²⁶ A week later his talmidim were once more in the room, and this time T’oma was with them. Although the doors were locked, Yeshua came, stood among them and said, “Shalom aleikhem!” ²⁷ Then he said to T’oma, “Put your finger here, look at my hands, take your hand and put it into my side. Don’t be lacking in trust, but have trust!” ²⁸ T’oma answered him, “My Lord and my God!” ²⁹ Yeshua said to him, “Have you trusted because you have seen me? How blessed are those who do not see, but trust anyway!”

³⁰ In the presence of the talmidim Yeshua performed many other miracles which have not been recorded in this book. ³¹ But these which have been recorded are here so that you may trust that Yeshua is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by this trust you may have life because of who he is.

21 After this, Yeshua appeared again to the talmidim at Lake Tiberias. Here is how it happened: ² Shim‘on Kefa and T’oma (his name means “twin”) were together with Natan’el from Kanah in the Galil, the sons of Zavdai, and two other talmidim. ³ Shim‘on Kefa said, “I’m going fishing.” They said to him, “We’re coming with you.” They went and got into the boat, but that night they didn’t catch anything. ⁴ However, just as day was breaking, Yeshua stood on shore, but the talmidim didn’t know it was he. ⁵ He said to them, “You don’t have any fish, do you?” “No,” they answered him. ⁶ He said to them, “Throw in your net to starboard and you will catch some.” So they threw in their net, and there were so many fish in it that they couldn’t haul it aboard. ⁷ The talmid Yeshua loved said to Kefa, “It’s the Lord!” On hearing it was the Lord, Shim‘on Kefa threw on his coat, because he was stripped for work, and plunged into the lake; ⁸ but the other talmidim followed in the boat, dragging the net full of fish; for they weren’t far from shore, only about a hundred yards. ⁹ When they stepped ashore, they saw a fire of burning coals with a fish on it, and some bread. ¹⁰ Yeshua said to them, “Bring some of the fish you have just caught.” ¹¹ Shim‘on Kefa went up and dragged the net ashore. It was full of fish, 153 of them; but even with so many, the net wasn’t torn. ¹² Yeshua said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” None of the talmidim dared to ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord. ¹³ Yeshua came, took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. ¹⁴ This was now the third time Yeshua had appeared to the talmidim after being raised from the dead.

¹⁵ After breakfast, Yeshua said to Shim‘on Kefa, “Shim‘on Bar-Yochanan, do you love me more than these?” He replied, “Yes, Lord, you know I’m your friend.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” ¹⁶ A second time he said to him, “Shim‘on Bar-Yochanan, do you love me?” He replied, “Yes, Lord, you know I’m your friend.” He said to him, “Shepherd my sheep.” ¹⁷ The third time he said to him, “Shim‘on Bar-Yochanan, are you my friend?” Shim‘on was hurt that he questioned him a third time: “Are you my friend?” So he replied, “Lord, you know everything! You know I’m your friend!” Yeshua said to him, “Feed my sheep! ¹⁸ Yes, indeed! I tell you, when you were younger, you put on your clothes and went where you wanted. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” ¹⁹ He said this to indicate the kind of death by which Kefa would bring glory to God. Then Yeshua said to him, “Follow me!”

²⁰ Kefa turned and saw the talmid Yeshua especially loved following behind, the one who had leaned against him at the supper and had asked, “Who is the one who is betraying you?” ²¹ On seeing him, Kefa said to Yeshua, “Lord, what about him?” ²² Yeshua said to him, “If I want him to stay on until I come, what is it to you? You, follow me!” ²³ Therefore the word spread among the brothers that that talmid would not die. However, Yeshua didn’t say he wouldn’t die, but simply, “If I want him to stay on until I come, what is it to you?”

²⁴ This one is the talmid who is testifying about these things and who has recorded them.

And we know that his testimony is true.

²⁵ But there are also many other things Yeshua did; and if they were all to be recorded, I don’t think the whole world could contain the books that would have to be written!