Book of Common Prayer
45 (0) For the leader. Set to “Lilies.” By the descendants of Korach. A maskil. A lovesong:
2 (1) My heart is stirred by a noble theme;
I address my verses to the king;
My tongue is the pen of an expert scribe.
3 (2) You are the most handsome of men;
gracious speech flows from your lips.
For God has blessed you forever.
4 (3) Warrior, strap your sword at your thigh;
[gird on] your splendor and majesty.
5 (4) In your majesty, succeed, ride on
in the cause of truth, meekness and righteousness.
May your right hand teach you awesome things.
6 (5) Your arrows are sharp. The people fall under you,
as they penetrate the hearts of the king’s enemies.
7 (6) Your throne, God, will last forever and ever;
you rule your kingdom with a scepter of equity.
8 (7) You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness.
Therefore God, your God, has anointed you
with the oil of joy in preference to your companions.
9 (8) Your robes are all fragrant with myrrh, aloes and cassia;
from ivory palaces stringed instruments bring you joy.
10 (9) Daughters of kings are among your favorites;
at your right stands the queen in gold from Ofir.
11 (10) Listen, daughter! Think, pay attention!
Forget your own people and your father’s house,
12 (11) and the king will desire your beauty;
for he is your lord, so honor him.
13 (12) Then the daughter of Tzor, the richest of peoples,
will court your favor with gifts.
14 (13) Inside [the palace], the king’s daughter looks splendid,
attired in checker-work embroidered with gold.
15 (14) In brocade, she will be led to the king,
to you, with the virgins in her retinue.
16 (15) They will be led in with gladness and joy,
they will enter the king’s palace.
17 (16) You will have sons to succeed your ancestors;
you will make them princes in all the land.
18 (17) I will make your name known through all generations;
thus the peoples will praise you forever and ever.
47 (0) For the leader. A psalm of the descendants of Korach:
2 (1) Clap your hands, all you peoples!
Shout to God with cries of joy!
3 (2) For Adonai ‘Elyon is awesome,
a great king over all the earth.
4 (3) He makes peoples subject to us,
puts nations under our feet.
5 (4) He chooses our heritage for us,
the pride of Ya‘akov, whom he loves. (Selah)
6 (5) God goes up to shouts of acclaim,
Adonai to a blast on the shofar.
7 (6) Sing praises to God, sing praises!
Sing praises to our king, sing praises!
8 (7) For God is king of all the earth;
sing praises in a maskil.
9 (8) God rules the nations;
God sits on his holy throne.
10 (9) The leaders of the people gather together,
the people of the God of Avraham;
for the rulers of the earth belong to God,
who is exalted on high.
48 (0) A song. A psalm of the descendants of Korach:
2 (1) Great is Adonai
and greatly to be praised,
in the city of our God,
his holy mountain,
3 (2) beautiful in its elevation,
the joy of all the earth,
Mount Tziyon, in the far north,
the city of the great king.
4 (3) In its citadels God
has been revealed as a strong defense.
5 (4) For the kings met by agreement;
together they advanced.
6 (5) They saw and were filled with consternation;
terrified, they took to flight.
7 (6) Trembling took hold of them,
pains like those of a woman in labor,
8 (7) as when the wind out of the east
wrecks the “Tarshish” ships.
9 (8) We heard it, and now we see for ourselves
in the city of Adonai-Tzva’ot,
in the city of our God.
May God establish it forever. (Selah)
10 (9) God, within your temple
we meditate on your grace.
11 (10) God, your praise, like your name,
extends to the ends of the earth.
Your right hand is filled with righteousness.
12 (11) Let Mount Tziyon rejoice,
let the daughters of Y’hudah be glad,
because of your judgment [on the enemy].
13 (12) Walk through Tziyon, go all around it;
count how many towers it has.
14 (13) Note its ramparts, pass through its citadels,
so that you can tell generations to come
15 (14) that such is God, our God forever;
he will guide us eternally.
(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!’
3 Therefore, brothers whom God has set apart, who share in the call from heaven, think carefully about Yeshua, whom we acknowledge publicly as God’s emissary and as cohen gadol. 2 He was faithful to God, who appointed him; just as
“Moshe was faithful in all God’s house.”[a]
3 But Yeshua deserves more honor than Moshe, just as the builder of the house deserves more honor than the house. 4 For every house is built by someone, but the one who built everything is God.
5 Also, Moshe was faithful in all God’s house, as a servant giving witness to things God would divulge later. 6 But the Messiah, as Son, was faithful over God’s house. And we are that house of his, provided we hold firmly to the courage and confidence inspired by what we hope for.
7 Therefore, as the Ruach HaKodesh says,
“Today, if you hear God’s voice,
8 don’t harden your hearts, as you did in the Bitter Quarrel
on that day in the Wilderness when you put God to the test.
9 Yes, your fathers put me to the test;
they challenged me, and they saw my work for forty years!
10 Therefore, I was disgusted with that generation —
I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray,
they have not understood how I do things’;
11 in my anger, I swore
that they would not enter my rest.”[b]
13 It was almost time for the festival of Pesach in Y’hudah, so Yeshua went up to Yerushalayim. 14 In the Temple grounds he found those who were selling cattle, sheep and pigeons, and others who were sitting at tables exchanging money. 15 He made a whip from cords and drove them all out of the Temple grounds, the sheep and cattle as well. He knocked over the money-changers’ tables, scattering their coins; 16 and to the pigeon-sellers he said, “Get these things out of here! How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market?” 17 (His talmidim later recalled that the Tanakh says, “Zeal for your house will devour me.” )[a] 18 So the Judeans confronted him by asking him, “What miraculous sign can you show us to prove you have the right to do all this?” 19 Yeshua answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again.” 20 The Judeans said, “It took 46 years to build this Temple, and you’re going to raise it in three days?” 21 But the “temple” he had spoken of was his body. 22 Therefore, when he was raised from the dead, his talmidim remembered that he had said this, and they trusted in the Tanakh and in what Yeshua had said.
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.