Book of Common Prayer
ז (Zayin)
49 Remember your promise to your servant,
through which you have given me hope.
50 In my distress my comfort is this:
that your promise gives me life.
51 Though the arrogant scorn me completely,
I have not turned away from your Torah.
52 Adonai, I keep in mind your age-old rulings;
in them I take comfort.
53 Fury seizes me when I think of the wicked,
because they abandon your Torah.
54 Your laws have become my songs
wherever I make my home.
55 I remember your name, Adonai, at night;
and I observe your Torah.
56 This [comfort] has come to me,
because I observe your precepts.
ח (Het)
57 Adonai, I say that my task
is to observe your words.
58 I beg your favor with my whole heart;
show pity to me, in keeping with your promise.
59 I thought about my ways
and turned my feet toward your instruction.
60 I hurry, I don’t delay,
to observe your mitzvot.
61 Even when the cords of the wicked close around me,
I don’t forget your Torah.
62 At midnight I rise to give you thanks
because of your righteous rulings.
63 I am a friend of all who fear you,
of those who observe your precepts.
64 The earth, Adonai, is full of your grace;
teach me your laws.
ט (Tet)
65 You have treated your servant well,
Adonai, in keeping with your word.
66 Teach me good judgment and knowledge,
because I trust in your mitzvot.
67 Before I was humbled, I used to go astray;
but now I observe your word.
68 You are good, and you do good;
teach me your laws.
69 The arrogant are slandering me,
but I will wholeheartedly keep your precepts.
70 Their hearts are as thick as fat,
but I take delight in your Torah.
71 It is for my good that I have been humbled;
it was so that I would learn your laws.
72 The Torah you have spoken means more to me
than a fortune in gold and silver.
49 (0) For the leader. A psalm of the descendants of Korach:
2 (1) Hear this, all you peoples!
Listen, everyone living on earth,
3 (2) regardless of whether low or high,
regardless of whether rich or poor!
4 (3) My mouth is about to speak wisdom;
my heart’s deepest thoughts will give understanding.
5 (4) I will listen with care to [God’s] parable,
I will set my enigma to the music of the lyre.
6 (5) Why should I fear when the days bring trouble,
when the evil of my pursuers surrounds me,
7 (6) the evil of those who rely on their wealth
and boast how rich they are?
8 (7) No one can ever redeem his brother
or give God a ransom for him ,
9 (8) because the price for him is too high
(leave the idea completely alone!)
10 (9) to have him live on eternally
and never see the pit.
11 (10) For he can see that wise men will die,
likewise the fool and the brute will perish
and leave their wealth to others.
12 (11) They think their homes will last forever,
their dwellings through all generations;
they give their own names to their estates.
13 (12) But people, even rich ones, will live only briefly;
then, like animals, they will die.
14 (13) This is the manner of life of the foolish
and those who come after, approving their words. (Selah)
15 (14) Like sheep, they are destined for Sh’ol;
death will be their shepherd.
The upright will rule them in the morning;
and their forms will waste away in Sh’ol,
until they need no dwelling.
16 (15) But God will redeem me from Sh’ol’s control,
because he will receive me. (Selah)
17 (16) Don’t be afraid when someone gets rich,
when the wealth of his family grows.
18 (17) For when he dies, he won’t take it with him;
his wealth will not go down after him.
19 (18) True, while he lived, he thought himself happy —
people praise you when you do well for yourself —
20 (19) but he will join his ancestors’ generations
and never again see light.
21 (20) People, even rich ones, can fail to grasp
that, like animals, they will die.
53 (0) For the leader. On machalat. A maskil of David:
2 (1) A brutish fool tells himself,
“There isn’t any God.”
Such people are depraved, all their deeds are vile,
not one of them does what is good.
3 (2) God looks out from heaven
upon the human race
to see if even one is wise,
if even one seeks God.
4 (3) Every one of them is unclean,
altogether corrupt;
not one of them does what is good,
not a single one.
5 (4) Won’t these evildoers ever learn?
They devour my people
as if they were eating bread,
and they never call on God!
6 (5) They will be gripped with terror,
even though now they are not afraid;
for God will scatter the bones
of him who is besieging you.
You are putting them to shame,
because God has rejected them.
7 (6) If only salvation for Isra’el
would come out of Tziyon!
When God restores his people’s fortunes,
what joy for Ya‘akov! what gladness for Isra’el!
17 Eliyahu from Tishbe, an inhabitant of Gil‘ad, said to Ach’av, “As Adonai the God of Isra’el lives, before whom I stand, there will be neither rain nor dew in the years ahead unless I say so.” 2 Then the word of Adonai came to him: 3 “Leave here, turn to the east, and hide in Vadi K’rit near the Yarden. 4 You are to drink from the stream, and I have ordered the ravens to feed you there.” 5 So he went and acted according to the word of Adonai — he went and lived in Vadi K’rit near the Yarden. 6 The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening; and he drank from the stream. 7 After a while the stream dried up, because there was no rain in the land.
8 Then this word of Adonai came to him: 9 “Get up; go to Tzarfat, a village in Tzidon; and live there. I have ordered a widow there to provide for you.” 10 So he set out and went to Tzarfat. On reaching the gate of the city, he saw a widow there gathering sticks. He called out to her, “Please bring a little water in a container for me to drink.” 11 As she was going to get it, he called after her, “Please bring me a piece of bread in your hand.” 12 She answered, “As Adonai your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a pot and a little oil in the jug. Here I am, gathering a couple sticks of wood, so that I can go and cook it for myself and my son. After we have eaten that, we will die.” 13 Eliyahu said to her, “Don’t be afraid. Go; and do what you said; but first, use a little of it to make me a small loaf of bread; and bring it out to me. After that, make food for yourself and your son. 14 For this is what Adonai the God of Isra’el, says: ‘The pot of meal will not get used up, nor will there fail to be oil in the jug, until the day Adonai sends rain down on the land.’” 15 She went and acted according to what Eliyahu had said; and she, he and her household had food to eat for a long time. 16 The pot of meal did not get used up, nor did there fail to be oil in the jug, in fulfillment of the word of Adonai spoken through Eliyahu.
17 A while later, the son of the woman whose house it was fell ill; his illness grew increasingly serious until his breathing stopped. 18 She said to Eliyahu, “What do you have against me, you man of God? Did you come to me just to remind me how sinful I am by killing my son?” 19 “Give me your son,” he said to her. Taking him from her lap, he carried him into the room upstairs where he was staying and laid him on his own bed. 20 Then he cried out to Adonai: “Adonai my God! Have you brought also this misery on the widow I’m staying with by killing her son?” 21 He stretched himself out on the child three times and cried out to Adonai: “Adonai my God, please! Let this child’s soul come back into him!” 22 Adonai heard Eliyahu’s cry, the child’s soul came back into him, and he revived. 23 Eliyahu took the child, brought him down from the upstairs room into the house and gave him to his mother; and Eliyahu said, “See? Your son is alive.” 24 The woman replied to Eliyahu, “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of Adonai that you speak is the truth.”
2 Therefore, if you have any encouragement for me from your being in union with the Messiah, any comfort flowing from love, any fellowship with me in the Spirit, or any compassion and sympathy, 2 then complete my joy by having a common purpose and a common love, by being one in heart and mind. 3 Do nothing out of rivalry or vanity; but, in humility, regard each other as better than yourselves — 4 look out for each other’s interests and not just for your own.
5 Let your attitude toward one another be governed by your being in union with the Messiah Yeshua:
6 Though he was in the form of God,
he did not regard equality with God
something to be possessed by force.
7 On the contrary, he emptied himself,
in that he took the form of a slave
by becoming like human beings are.
And when he appeared as a human being,
8 he humbled himself still more
by becoming obedient even to death —
death on a stake as a criminal!
9 Therefore God raised him to the highest place
and gave him the name above every name;
10 that in honor of the name given Yeshua,
every knee will bow —
in heaven, on earth and under the earth —
11 and every tongue will acknowledge[a]
that Yeshua the Messiah is Adonai —
to the glory of God the Father.
2 After Yeshua was born in Beit-Lechem in the land of Y’hudah during the time when Herod was king, Magi from the east came to Yerushalayim 2 and asked, “Where is the newborn King of the Jews? For we saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.”
3 When King Herod heard of this he became very agitated, and so did everyone else in Yerushalayim. 4 He called together all the head cohanim and Torah-teachers of the people and asked them, “Where will the Messiah be born?” 5 “In Beit-Lechem of Y’hudah,” they replied, “because the prophet wrote,
6 ‘And you, Beit-Lechem in the land of Y’hudah,
are by no means the least among the rulers of Y’hudah;
for from you will come a Ruler
who will shepherd my people Isra’el.’”[a]
7 Herod summoned the Magi to meet with him privately and asked them exactly when the star had appeared. 8 Then he sent them to Beit-Lechem with these instructions: “Search carefully for the child; and when you find him, let me know, so that I too may go and worship him.”
9 After they had listened to the king, they went away; and the star which they had seen in the east went in front of them until it came and stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11 Upon entering the house, they saw the child with his mother Miryam; and they prostrated themselves and worshipped him. Then they opened their bags and presented him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. 12 But they had been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, so they took another route back to their own country.
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.