Book of Common Prayer
Israel from Moses to David
Psalm 78
1 A contemplative song of Asaph.
Listen, my people, to my teaching.
Turn your ears to the words of my mouth.
2 I will open my mouth with a parable.
I will utter perplexing sayings from of old,
3 which we have heard and known,
and our fathers have told us.
4 We will not hide them from their children,
telling to the next generation the praises of Adonai
and His strength and the wonders He has done.
5 For He established a testimony in Jacob
and ordained Torah in Israel,
which He commanded our fathers to teach their children,
6 so that the next generation might know,
even the children yet to be born:
they will arise and tell their children.
7 Then they will put their trust in God,
not forgetting the works of God,
but keeping His mitzvot.
8 So they will not be like their fathers—
a stubborn and rebellious generation,
a generation that did not prepare its heart,
whose spirit was not loyal to God.
9 The sons of Ephraim were archers armed with bows,
yet they turned back in the day of battle.
10 They did not keep God’s covenant
and refused to walk in His Torah.
11 They forgot His deeds
and His wonders that He had shown them.
12 He did miracles in front of their fathers
in the land of Egypt, in the plain of Zoan.
13 He split the sea and led them through,
and He made the water stand like a wall.
14 By day He led them with a cloud
and all night with a light of fire.
15 He split apart rocks in the wilderness
and gave them drink as abundant as the depths.
16 So He brought streams out of a rock,
and made waters flow down like rivers.[a]
17 Yet they added more sinning against Him,
rebelling against Elyon in the desert.
18 They put God to the test in their heart
by demanding food for their craving.
19 Then they spoke against God, saying,
“Can God set a table in the wilderness?
20 See, He struck the rock,
waters gushed out, streams overflowed.
But can He give bread?
Will He provide meat for His people?”
21 When Adonai heard, He was angry.
A fire was kindled against Jacob,
and fury also rose against Israel.
22 For they did not believe in God
or trust in His salvation.
23 Yet He commanded the skies above
and opened the doors of heaven,
24 and rained down manna upon them to eat,
and gave them grain of heaven.[b]
25 Man did eat the bread of angels.
He sent them abundant provision.
26 He loosed the east wind in the skies,
and by His power He drove the south wind.
27 He rained meat upon them like dust,
and winged fowl like sand of the seas.
28 And He let it fall amidst their camp,
all around their tents.
29 So they ate and were very full—
for He gave them their desire.
30 No longer a stranger from their desire,
while their food was still in their mouths,
31 the anger of God rose against them
and slew the stoutest of them,
and struck down young men of Israel.
32 Despite all this they sinned still more,
and did not trust in His wonders.
33 So He ended their days in futility
and their years in terror.
34 But when He slew them,
then they sought Him, and turned back,
and desired God eagerly.
35 Then they remembered that God was their Rock
and El Elyon their Redeemer.
36 But they flattered Him with their mouth
and kept lying to Him with their tongue.
37 For their heart was not steadfast with Him,
nor were they faithful to His covenant.
38 But He is compassionate,
forgives iniquity and does not destroy.
Yes, many times He restrains His anger,
and does not stir up all His wrath.
39 For He remembered that they are but flesh,
a passing breath that never returns.
40 How often they rebelled against Him in the wilderness,
and grieved Him in the desert!
41 Again and again they tested God,
and pained the Holy One of Israel.
42 They did not remember His hand—
the day He redeemed them from the foe,
43 when He displayed His signs in Egypt
and His wonders in the plain of Zoan.
44 He turned their rivers into blood,
so they could not drink from their streams.
45 He sent on them flies to devour them,
and frogs to devastate them,
46 and gave their crops to the grasshopper,
and their labor to the locust.
47 He destroyed their vines with hail,
and their sycamore trees with frost,
48 and gave over their cattle to the hail,
and their flocks to fiery bolts.
49 He sent on them the fury of His anger
—wrath and indignation and trouble—
a band of evil angels.
50 He cleared a path for His anger.
He spared not their soul from death,
but gave their life over to the plague.
51 He struck down all the firstborn in Egypt,
the firstfruits of their strength in the tents of Ham.
52 But He brought His people out like sheep,
and led them in the wilderness like a flock.
53 He led them to safety, so they did not fear,
but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.
54 Then He brought them to His holy territory,
to the mountain His right hand had gotten.
55 He drove out nations before them,
and allotted them an inheritance.
He settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.
56 Yet they tested and rebelled against El Elyon,
and did not keep His decrees.
57 Like their fathers they turned and were treacherous.
They turned aside like a faulty bow.
58 For they provoked Him
with their high places,
so they aroused His jealousy
with their graven images.
59 God heard and was furious,
and He greatly detested Israel.
60 He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh,
the tent He pitched among men.
61 He gave up His strength into captivity,
and His glory into the adversary’s hand.
62 He gave His people over to the sword,
when He was angry at His inheritance.
63 Fire consumed their young men,
and their virgins had no wedding songs.
64 Their priests fell by the sword,
and their widows could not weep.
65 Then the Lord awoke as from sleep,
as a warrior shaking off wine.
66 He beat back His foes,
putting them to lasting scorn.
67 Then He detested Joseph’s tent
and chose not the tribe of Ephraim.
68 Instead He chose the tribe of Judah,
Mount Zion, which He loved.
69 He built His Sanctuary like the heights,
like the earth that He established forever.
70 He also chose David His servant
and took him from the sheepfolds,
71 from following nursing ewes.
He brought him to shepherd Jacob His people,
and Israel His inheritance.
72 So He shepherded them with the integrity of His heart,
and led them with His skillful hands.
11 “Take care that you do not forget Adonai your God by not keeping His mitzvot, ordinances and statutes that I am commanding you today. 12 Otherwise, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and lived in them, 13 and when your herds and flocks multiply, and silver and gold multiplies for you and all that is yours multiplies, 14 then your heart will be haughty and you will forget Adonai your God. He brought you out from the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery. 15 He led you through the great and terrible wilderness—fiery serpents and scorpions, and thirsty ground where there was no water. He brought forth water for you from the flinty rock. 16 He fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, in order to afflict you and test you, to do you good in the end. 17 You may say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand has made me this wealth.’ 18 Rather you are to remember Adonai your God, for it is He who gives you power to make wealth, in order to establish His covenant that He swore to your fathers—as it is this day.
19 “Now if you do forget Adonai your God, and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you will certainly perish. 20 Like the nations Adonai makes perish before you, so you will perish, since you would not listen to the voice of Adonai your God.
16 Do not be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. 17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. 18 By His will, He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all He created.[a]
Quick to Listen, Slow to Anger
19 Know this, my dear brothers and sisters: let every person be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger[b]— 20 for human anger doesn’t produce the righteousness of God. 21 So put away all moral filth and excess of evil and receive with humility the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deluding yourselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror— 24 for once he looks at himself and goes away, he immediately forgets what sort of person he was. 25 But the one who looks intently into the perfect Torah, the Torah that gives freedom, and continues in it, not becoming a hearer who forgets but a doer who acts—he shall be blessed in what he does.
26 If anyone thinks he is religious and yet does not bridle his tongue[c] but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is futile. 27 Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress,[d] and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
Praying Along the Way
11 Now Yeshua was praying in a certain place. When He finished, one of His disciples said to Him, “Master, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”
2 Then Yeshua said to them, “When you pray, say,
‘Father, sanctified be Your Name,
Your kingdom come.[a]
3 Give us each day our daily bread.
4 And forgive us our sins,
for we also forgive everyone indebted to us.
And lead us not into temptation.”
5 Then Yeshua said to them, “Which of you has a friend and will go to him in the middle of the night and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, 6 because a friend of mine has come to me on his journey and I have nothing to set before him.’ 7 Then from within he may answer, saying, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up to give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, even if the friend will not get up and give him anything out of friendship, yet because of the man’s persistence he will get up and give him as much as he needs.
9 “So I say to you, ‘Ask, and it shall be given to you. Seek, and you shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.’ 11 What father, if his son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? 12 And if he asks for an egg, will he give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Ruach ha-Kodesh[b] to those who ask Him!”
Tree of Life (TLV) Translation of the Bible. Copyright © 2015 by The Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society.