Book of Common Prayer
MEM מ
97 O how I love Your Torah!
It is my meditation all day.
98 Your mitzvot make me wiser than my enemies
—for they are mine forever.
99 I have more insight than all my teachers,
for Your testimonies are my meditation.
100 I have gained more understanding than all my elders,
for I have kept Your precepts.
101 I kept my feet from every evil way,
in order to follow Your word.
102 I do not turn away from Your rulings,
for You Yourself have taught me.
103 How sweet is Your word to my taste—
yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth!
104 From Your precepts I get discernment,
therefore I hate every false way.
NUN נ
105 Your word is a lamp to my feet
and a light to my path.[a]
106 I have sworn and confirmed
to observe Your righteous rulings.
107 I am severely afflicted.
Keep me alive, Adonai, according to Your word.
108 Please accept the freewill offerings of my mouth, Adonai,
and teach me Your rulings.
109 My soul is continually in danger,
yet I have not forgotten Your Torah.
110 The wicked have set a snare for me,
yet I did not stray from Your precepts.
111 Your testimonies I have as a heritage
forever, for they are my heart’s joy.
112 I turned my heart to do Your decrees,
forever, to the very end.
SAMECH ס
113 I hate double-minded ones,
but Your Torah I love.
114 You are my hiding place and my shield
—in Your word I hope.
115 Away from me, evildoers,
so I may keep the mitzvot of my God!
116 Sustain me according to Your word, so I may live,
and let me not be ashamed of my hope.
117 Support me and I will be saved,
and study Your decrees continually.
118 You despise all who wander from Your decrees,
for their deceitfulness is in vain.
119 All the wicked of the earth You remove like dross.
Therefore I love Your testimonies.
120 My flesh shudders for fear of You,
and I am in awe of Your judgments.
Hear O Israel
Psalm 81
1 For the music director, on the Gittite lyre, of Asaph.
2 Sing for joy to God our strength,
shout to the God of Jacob!
3 Lift up a song and sound a tambourine,
a sweet lyre with a harp.
4 Blow the shofar at the New Moon,
at the full moon for the day of our festival.
5 For it is a decree for Israel,
an ordinance of the God of Jacob.
6 He set it up as a testimony in Joseph,
when He went throughout the land of Egypt,
I heard a language I did not understand.
7 “I relieved his shoulder of the burden,
his hands were set free from the basket.
8 You called out in trouble, and I rescued you.
I answered you from the hiding place of thunder.
I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah
9 Hear, My people, I will admonish you—
if you would listen to Me, O Israel!
10 Let there be no foreign god among you,
and you shall not worship any alien god.
11 I am Adonai your God,
who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
Open your mouth wide and I will fill it.
12 But My people did not listen to My voice.
Israel was not willing to be Mine.
13 So I gave them over
to the stubbornness of their heart,
to walk in their own counsels.
14 Oh that My people would listen to Me,
that Israel would walk in My ways!
15 I would soon subdue their enemies,
and turn My hand against their foes.
16 Those who hate Adonai would cringe before Him—
their time of doom would be forever.
17 But you would be fed with the finest wheat,
with honey out of a rock would I satisfy you.”
A Rebuke for Unjust Judges
Psalm 82
1 A psalm of Asaph.
God takes His stand in the assembly of God.
He judges among the ‘gods’:
2 “How long will you judge unjustly
and show partiality to the wicked? Selah
3 Give justice to the poor and fatherless.
Be just to the afflicted and destitute.
4 Rescue the weak and needy.
Deliver them out of the hand of the wicked.
5 They know nothing;
they understand nothing—
they walk about in darkness.
All of earth’s foundations are shaken.
6 I said: ‘You are ‘gods’,
and you are all sons of Elyon,[a]
7 yet you will die like men,
and will fall like any of the princes.’”
8 Arise, O God, judge the earth!
For You possess all the nations.
Seventy Elders Prophesying
24 So Moses went out and told the people Adonai’s words. He gathered 70 of the elders of the people and had them stand around the Tent. 25 Adonai descended in the cloud and spoke with him. He took some of the Ruach that was on him and placed it on each of the 70 elders. It so happened that when the Ruach first rested on them, they prophesied—but never again.
26 Two men, however, had remained in the camp. The name of one was Eldad and the name of the other was Medad. The Ruach rested on them. They were among those listed, but they had not gone out to the Tent. So they prophesied in the camp. 27 A young man ran and told Moses and said, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp!”
28 Joshua son of Nun, the assistant of Moses since his youth, cried out and said, “Moses, my lord, stop them!”
29 But Moses said to him, “Are you jealous on my behalf? If only Adonai would make all the people prophets! If only Adonai would put the Spirit on all of them!”
30 Then Moses and the elders of Israel returned to the camp.
Quails From the Sea
31 Now a wind went out from Adonai and drove quails from the sea. He brought them into the camp to about a day’s journey in any direction, about two cubits above the ground all around the camp. 32 The people went out all that night and all the following day and collected quail. No one gathered less than ten omers. They spread them out all around the camp.
33 Yet while the meat was between their teeth, before it was swallowed, Adonai’s anger burned against the people. So Adonai struck the people with a severe plague. 34 For that reason the name of that place was called Kibroth-hattaavah[a], because they buried the people who were craving.
35 From Kibroth-hattaavah the people journeyed to Hazeroth and stayed in Hazeroth.
28 And just as they did not see fit to recognize God, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what is not fitting. 29 They became filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents. 31 They are foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s righteous decree—that those who practice such things deserve death—they not only do them but also approve of others who practice the same.
God’s Judgment on Unrighteousness
2 Therefore you are without excuse, O man—every one of you who is judging. For by whatever you judge another, you condemn yourself. For you who judge practice the same things. [a] 2 We know that God’s judgment on those who practice such things is based on truth. 3 But you, O man—judging those practicing such things yet doing the same—do you suppose that you will escape the judgment of God? 4 Or do you belittle the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience—not realizing that God’s kindness leads you to repentance?
5 But by your hard and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment is revealed. [b] 6 He will pay back each person according to his deeds. [c] 7 To those who by perseverance in doing good are seeking glory, honor, and immortality—eternal life. 8 But to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness—wrath and fury. 9 There will be trouble and hardship for every human soul that does evil—to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 10 But there will be glory, honor, and shalom to everyone who does good—to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 11 For there is no partiality with God.[d]
Childlike Humility
18 At that hour the disciples came to Yeshua, saying, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”
2 And He called a child to Himself, set him in the midst of them, 3 and said, “Amen, I tell you, unless you turn and become like children, you shall never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whoever then shall humble himself like this child, this one is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 And whoever welcomes one such child in My name, welcomes Me.
6 “But whoever causes one of these little ones who trust in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck and to be sunk in the depth of the sea! 7 Woe to the world because of snares! For snares must come, but woe to that man through whom the snare comes!
8 “And if your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away from you. It’s better for you to enter into life crippled or lame than, having two hands or two feet, to be thrown into fiery Gehenna. 9 If your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it away from you. It’s better for you to enter into life with one eye than, having two eyes, to be thrown into fiery Gehenna.
Tree of Life (TLV) Translation of the Bible. Copyright © 2015 by The Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society.