Book of Common Prayer
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.[a]
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.’”
Scorn and Disgrace, Gall and Vinegar
Psalm 69
1 For the music director, on “Lilies,” of David.
2 Save me, O God,
for the waters
have reached my soul.
3 I have sunk in deep mud,
and there is no footing,
I have come into deep waters,
and a flood sweeps over me.
4 I am worn out by my crying,
my throat is parched,
my eyes fail, waiting for my God.
5 Those who hate me without a cause[a] outnumber the hairs of my head.
Powerful are my enemies who would destroy me with lies.
What I did not steal, must I restore?
6 O God, You know my folly,
nor are my trespasses hidden from You.
7 May those who hope in You
not be ashamed because of me,
my Lord, Adonai-Tzva’ot.
May those who seek You
not be disgraced because of me,
O God of Israel.
8 For I have endured scorn for Your sake.
Disgrace has covered my face.
9 I have become a stranger to my brothers,
a foreigner to my mother’s children.
10 For zeal for Your House consumed me—
the insults of those who insulted You have fallen on me.[b]
11 When I wept and fasted—
that became a reproach to me.
12 When I put on sackcloth,
I became a joke to them.
13 Those who sit at the gate chatter about me,
and I am the song of the drunkards.
14 But as for me, my prayer to You, Adonai, is for a time of favor.
O God, in Your great love, answer me with the truth of Your salvation.
15 Deliver me from the mire—
do not let me sink.
Deliver me from those who hate me,
out of the deep waters.
16 Do not let floodwaters sweep over me,
nor the deep swallow me up,
nor the Pit shut its mouth over me.
17 Answer me, Adonai, for good is Your mercy.
With Your great compassion, turn to me.
18 Hide not Your face from Your servant.
For I am in distress—answer me quickly.
19 Draw near to my soul and redeem it.
Ransom me because of my foes.
20 You know my reproach, my shame, my disgrace.
All my adversaries are before You.
21 Scorn has broken my heart, so I am sick.
I looked for sympathy, but there was none,
for comforters, but found none.
22 They put gall in my food,
and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.[c]
23 Let their table before them be a snare,
and what should have been for their well-being,
let it be a trap.
24 Let their eyes be darkened so they cannot see
and their backs be bent forever.[d]
25 Pour out Your indignation on them.
Let Your fierce anger overtake them.
26 Let their encampment be deserted.
Let none dwell in their tents.
27 For they persecute the one You have smitten,
so they tell of the pain
of those You have wounded.
28 Add guilt to their guilt—
may they not come into Your righteousness.
29 May they be wiped out of the book of life
and not be recorded with the righteous.[e]
30 But I—I am afflicted and in pain.
Let Your salvation, O God, set me up on high.
31 I will praise God’s Name with a song,
and magnify Him with praise.
32 It will please Adonai better than an ox
or a bull with horns and hoofs.
33 The humble will see it and be glad.
You who seek God, let your hearts revive.
34 For Adonai hears the needy
and does not despise His captive people.
35 Let heaven and earth praise Him,
the seas and everything moving in them.
36 For God will save Zion,
and rebuild the cities of Judah.
Then they will dwell there and possess it.
37 The children of His servants will inherit it
and those who love His Name will dwell there.
God Is the Strength of My Heart
Psalm 73
1 A psalm of Asaph.
Surely God is good to Israel,
to the pure in heart.
2 But as for me, my feet almost slipped.
My steps nearly slid out from under me.
3 For I envied the arrogant,
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
4 For there are no pains at their death,
their body is healthy.
5 They have none of humanity’s trouble,
nor are they plagued like others.
6 Therefore, they put on pride as a necklace,
and violence wraps around them like a garment.
7 Their eyes bulge out from fatness.
The imaginations of their hearts run wild.
8 They scoff and wickedly plan evil.
From on high they threaten.
9 They set their mouth against heaven.
Their tongue struts through the earth.
10 Therefore His people return here,
while they drink their fill.
11 So they say: “How does God know?
And does Elyon have knowledge?”
12 Behold, such are the wicked—
always at ease and amassing wealth.
13 Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure,
and washed my hands in innocence.
14 For all day I have been stricken,
my chastisement comes every morning.
15 If I had said: “I will speak thus,”
surely I would have betrayed a generation of Your children.
16 But when I tried to make sense of this,
it was troubling in my eyes—
17 until I entered the Sanctuary of God,
and perceived their end.
18 Surely You put them in slippery places.
You hurled them down to destruction.
19 How suddenly they became a ruin—
terminated, consumed by terrors.
20 Like a dream when one awakes,
thus when You arise, my Lord,
You will despise their form.
21 When my heart was embittered
and I was pierced in my heart,
22 I was brutish and ignorant.
I was like a beast before You.
23 Yet I am continually with You.
You hold my right hand.
24 You guide me with Your counsel,
and afterward You will take me into glory.
25 Whom have I in heaven but You?
On earth there is none I desire besides You.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.
27 For behold, those far from You will perish.
You put an end to all who like a harlot are unfaithful to You.
28 But for me, it is good to be near God.
I have made my Lord Adonai my refuge.
So I will tell of all Your works.
Judah Pledges for Benjamin
43 Now the famine was severe in the land. 2 When they finished eating the grain they had brought from Egypt their father said to them, “Go back. Buy us a little food.”
3 But Judah said to him, “The man warned us firmly saying, ‘You won’t see my face unless your brother is with you.’ 4 If you send our brother with us, we will go down and buy grain for you for food. 5 But if you won’t send him, we won’t go down, because the man said to us, ‘You won’t see my face unless your brother is with you.’”
6 Then Israel said, “Why did you do evil to me by telling the man that you have another brother?”
7 They said, “The man questioned particularly about us and about our relatives saying, ‘Is your father still alive? Do you have a brother?’ So we spoke to him on the basis of these words. How could we possibly know that he would say, ‘Bring your brother down’”?
8 Then Judah said to his father Israel, “Please, send the boy with me and we’ll get up and go, so that we’ll live and not die—we and you, and our children. 9 I myself will be his pledge. You can demand him back from my own hand. If I don’t bring him back to you and place him before you, then you can blame me all my days. 10 If we had not delayed, we could have returned twice by now.”
11 Then their father Israel said to them, “If it must be so, then do this: take some of the best products of the land in your bags, and bring an offering down to the man—a little balsam and a little honey, gum and myrrh, pistachios and almonds. 12 Also take in your hand a double portion of silver, and bring back in your hand the silver that had been returned in the mouth of your sacks. Perhaps it was a mistake. 13 Take your brother too—now, get up, go back to the man! 14 May El Shaddai grant you mercy before the man, so that he may release your other brother to you, along with Benjamin. As for me, if I am bereaved, I am bereaved.”
The Brothers Return With Benjamin
15 Then the men took this offering. They also took the double portion of silver in their hand, as well as Benjamin. So they got up and went down to Egypt, and stood before Joseph.
Counsel About Marriage
7 Now concerning the things about which you wrote to me, it is good for a man not to touch a woman. 2 But because of much immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. 3 Let the husband fulfill his obligation to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband. 4 The wife does not have the rights to her own body, but the husband. Likewise also the husband does not have the rights to his own body, but the wife. 5 Do not deprive one another—except by mutual consent for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer.[a] Then come together again, so that satan doesn’t tempt you because of your lack of self-control. 6 But this I say as a concession, not as a command. 7 Yet I wish that all men were like me. However, each man has his own gift from God, one in this way and another that.
8 But I say to the unmarried and to widows that it is good for them to remain as I am. 9 But if they do not have self-control, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with desire.
Power Over Nature
35 Now on that same day in the evening, He says to them, “Let’s cross over to the other side.” 36 After leaving the crowd, they take Him along in the boat, just as He was. And other boats were with Him.
37 A great windstorm arises, and the waves were rushing into the boat. The boat was beginning to fill up. 38 But Yeshua was in the back of the boat, sleeping on a pillow. They wake Him up and say to Him, “Teacher, don’t you care that we are perishing?”
39 So He woke up and rebuked the wind. And He said to the sea, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind stopped, and it became totally calm. 40 And He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Even now you have no faith?”
41 They were struck with awe and said to one another, “Who is this? Even the wind and the sea obey Him!”
Tree of Life (TLV) Translation of the Bible. Copyright © 2015 by The Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society.