Book of Common Prayer
Exalted Above All Gods
Psalm 97
1 Adonai reigns, let the earth rejoice,
let the many islands be glad.
2 Clouds and darkness are all around Him.
Righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne.
3 Fire goes before Him
and burns up His adversaries on every side.
4 His lightning lights up the world—
the earth sees and trembles.
5 The mountains melt like wax
at the presence of Adonai,
at the presence of the Lord of all earth.
6 The heavens declare His righteousness,
and all the peoples have seen His glory.
7 Let all who serve graven images be ashamed—who boast in idols.
Bow down before Him, all you gods!
8 Zion hears and is glad,
and the daughters of Judah rejoice,
because of Your judgments, Adonai.
9 For You, Adonai, are Elyon above all the earth.
You are exalted far above all gods.
10 You who love Adonai, hate evil!
He watches over the souls of His godly ones.
He delivers them out of the hand of the wicked.
11 Light is sown for the righteous
and gladness for the upright in heart.
12 Rejoice in Adonai, you righteous ones,
and praise His holy Name.
Worship at His Holy Hill
Psalm 99
1 Adonai reigns, let the peoples tremble.
He is enthroned upon the cheruvim—let the earth shake!
2 Adonai is great in Zion
and He is exalted above all the peoples.
3 Let them praise Your great
and awesome Name: holy is He.
4 The might of a king loves justice.
You have established fairness.
You executed justice and righteousness in Jacob.
5 Exalt Adonai our God
and worship at His footstool: holy is He.
6 Moses and Aaron were among His kohanim—
also Samuel among those calling on His Name.
They called on Adonai and He answered them.
7 He spoke to them from the pillar of cloud.
They kept His testimonies, and the decree that He gave them.
8 Adonai our God, You answered them.
A forgiving God You were to them, though You avenged their misdeeds.
9 Exalt Adonai our God,
and worship at His holy hill,
for holy is Adonai our God.
Enter His Gates with Thanksgiving
Psalm 100
1 A psalm of thanksgiving.
Shout joyfully to Adonai, all the earth!
2 Serve Adonai with gladness.
Come before His presence with joyful singing.
3 Know that Adonai, He is God.
It is He who has made us, and we are His.
We are His people, the sheep of His pasture.
4 Enter His gates with thanksgiving
and His courts with praise!
Praise Him, bless His Name.
5 For Adonai is good.
His lovingkindness endures forever,
and His faithfulness to all generations.
He Will Not Abandon His People
Psalm 94
1 God of vengeance, Adonai,
God of vengeance, shine forth!
2 Rise up, O Judge of the earth!
Pay back to the proud what they deserve.
3 How long will the wicked, Adonai,
how long will the wicked gloat?
4 They gush out, they speak arrogance—
all the evildoers keep boasting.
5 They crush Your people, Adonai,
and afflict Your heritage.
6 They slay the widow and the outsider,
and murder the fatherless.
7 So they say: “Adonai does not see—
the God of Jacob pays no attention.”
8 Pay attention, stupid among the people!
Fools, when will you comprehend?
9 He who planted the ear, does He not hear?
He who formed the eye, does He not see?
10 He who chastens nations, will He not rebuke—
One who teaches humanity knowledge?
11 Adonai knows human thoughts—
they are but a breath.
12 Blessed is the one You discipline, Adonai,
and teach him from Your Torah,
13 to give him rest from days of trouble
—until a pit is dug for the wicked.
14 For Adonai will not forsake His people.
He will never abandon His inheritance.[a]
15 For rightness will be restored to justice,
and all the upright in heart will follow it.
16 Who will rise up for me against the wicked?
Who will stand up for me against evildoers?
17 Unless Adonai had been my help,
my soul would soon have dwelt in the abode of silence.
18 If I say: “My foot has slipped,”
Your mercy, Adonai, will hold me up.
19 When my troubling thoughts multiply within me,
Your consolations comfort my soul.
20 Can a throne of corruption be aligned
with You—planning distress by decree?
21 They band together against the life of the righteous,
and condemn innocent blood.[b]
22 But Adonai has been my fortress
and my God the rock of my refuge.
23 He will repay them for their wickedness,
and will annihilate them in their evil.
Adonai our God will annihilate them.
Today, Hear His Voice
Psalm 95
1 O come, let us sing for joy to Adonai.
Let us shout for joy to the rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving.
Let us shout joyfully to Him with songs.
3 For Adonai is a great God
and a great King above all gods.
4 In His hand are the depths of the earth,
the mountain peaks are His also.
5 The sea is His—He made it,
and His hands formed the dry land.
6 Come, let us worship and bow down.
Let us kneel before Adonai our Maker.[c]
7 For He is our God,
and we are the people of His pasture,
the flock of His hand.
Today, if you hear His voice:
8 “Do not harden your heart as at Meribah,
as in the day of Massah in the wilderness,
9 when your fathers tested Me,
they challenged Me, even though they had seen My work.
10 For forty years I loathed that generation.
So I said: ‘It is a people whose heart goes astray,
who do not know My ways.’
11 Therefore I swore in My anger,
‘They shall never enter into My rest.’”
Joab Brings Absalom to Jerusalem
14 Now Joab son of Zeruiah perceived that the king’s heart was on Absalom. 2 So Joab sent word to Tekoa and brought a wise woman from there. He said to her, “Please pretend to be a mourner and put on mourning clothes. Do not anoint yourself with oil but be like a woman who has been mourning many days for the dead. 3 Then go to the king and speak to him these words.” Then Joab put the words in her mouth.
4 When the woman of Tekoa spoke to the king, she fell on her face to the ground, bowed down and said, “Help, O king!”
5 “What’s the matter with you?” the king said to her.
“Truly, I am a widow, my husband is dead,” she said. 6 “Your handmaid had two sons, but the two of them fought with each other in the field, where there was no one to separate them. So one struck the other and killed him. 7 Now behold, the whole clan has risen against your handmaid and said, ‘Hand over the one who struck down his brother so we may put him to death, for the life of his brother whom he slew.’ So they will also destroy the heir and extinguish my one remaining ember, leaving to my husband neither name nor remnant on the face of the earth!”
8 Then the king said to the woman, “Go to your home. I will issue an order concerning you.”
9 The woman of Tekoa said to the king, “My lord the king, let the iniquity be on me and on my father’s house but may the king and his throne be innocent.”
10 “Whoever speaks to you,” the king said, “bring him to me and he shall not touch you anymore.”
11 “Please, let the king remember Adonai your God,” she said, “so that the avenger of blood does not destroy any more, so they won’t destroy my son.”
“As Adonai lives,” he said, “not one hair of your son will fall to the ground.”
12 Then the woman said, “Please, let your handmaid speak a word to my lord the king.”
“Say on,” he said.
13 The woman said, “Why have you devised a situation just like this against God’s people? For by speaking this word, the king is like the guilty one—by not bringing back the one he banished. 14 For we will all surely die and be like water spilt on the ground that cannot be gathered up again. Yet God does not take away life but rather, He devises plans so that a banished person may not remain an outcast from Him. 15 Now the reason I came to speak this word to my lord the king is because the people have made me afraid. So your handmaid thought, ‘I must speak to the king—perhaps the king will fulfill the request of his maidservant. 16 Surely the king will hear, to deliver his maidservant from the hand of the one who would eliminate both me and my son together out of the inheritance of God.’ 17 Then your handmaid also thought, ‘Please let the word of my lord the king bring relief. For like an angel of God so is my lord the king to discern good and evil.’ So may Adonai your God be with you.”
18 Then the king answered and said to the woman, “Please do not hide anything from me concerning what I am about to ask you.”
“Please let my lord the king speak,” the woman said.
19 Then the king said, “Is the hand of Joab with you in all this?”
“As your soul lives, my lord the king,” the woman answered, “no one can turn to the right or to the left from anything that my lord the king has spoken. Yes, your servant Joab was the one who commanded me and put all these words in the mouth of your handmaid. 20 Your servant Joab did this thing in order to bring about a change in the situation. But my lord is wise—like the wisdom of an angel of God—to know all that goes on in the land.”
Going to Jerusalem Despite Warnings
21 After tearing ourselves away from them and setting sail, we set a straight course to Cos, the next day to Rhodes, and from there to Patara. 2 Finding a ship crossing to Phoenicia, we went aboard and set sail. 3 When we came in sight of Cyprus, passing it by on the left, we kept sailing to Syria and landed at Tyre—for there the ship was to unload the cargo. 4 We looked up the disciples and stayed there seven days. They kept telling Paul through the Ruach not to set foot in Jerusalem.
5 When our days there were over, we departed and went on our journey. They all, with wives and children, accompanied us until we were outside the city. After kneeling down on the shore and praying, 6 we said farewell to one another. Then we boarded the ship, and they returned home.
7 When we had finished the trip from Tyre, we arrived at Ptolemais. We greeted the brothers and sisters and stayed with them for one day. 8 On the next day, we departed and came to Caesarea. We entered the home of Philip, the proclaimer of Good News, who was one of the seven, and we stayed with him. 9 Now this man had four virgin daughters who prophesied.
10 While we stayed there for a number of days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. 11 He came to us, took Paul’s belt, tied his own hands and feet, and said, “The Ruach ha-Kodesh says this: ‘In this way shall the Jewish people in Jerusalem bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.’”
12 When we heard these things, both we and the local people urged Paul not to go up to Jerusalem. 13 Then Paul responded, “What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound but to die for the name of the Lord Yeshua!”
14 Since he would not be persuaded, we fell silent, saying only, “May the Lord’s will be done.”
Abide in Marriage
10 Then getting up from there, Yeshua goes to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. Again crowds gather around Him, and, as was His custom, He began to teach them once more.
2 Pharisees came up, and to test Him they began asking, “Is it permitted for a man to divorce his wife?”
3 And He replied to them, “What did Moses command you?”
4 The Pharisees said, “Moses permitted a man to write a bill of divorce and to put her away.”[a]
5 But Yeshua said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment! 6 But from the beginning of creation, God ‘made them male and female. 7 For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, 8 and the two shall become one flesh.’[b] So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no man separate!”
10 In the house, the disciples began questioning Him about this again. 11 And He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. 12 And if she divorces her husband and marries another, she is committing adultery.”
Let the Little Ones Come!
13 Now people were bringing little children to Yeshua so He might touch them, but the disciples rebuked those who brought them. 14 But when Yeshua saw this, He got angry. He told them, “Let the little children come to Me! Do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. 15 Amen, I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it!” 16 And He took them in His arms and began blessing them, laying His hands on them.
Tree of Life (TLV) Translation of the Bible. Copyright © 2015 by The Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society.