Book of Common Prayer
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.
6 Then Joseph died, as did all his brothers and all that generation. 7 Yet Bnei-Yisrael were fruitful, increased abundantly, multiplied and grew extremely numerous—so the land was filled with them.
8 Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. 9 He said to his people, “Look, the people of Bnei-Yisrael are too numerous and too powerful for us. 10 Come, we must deal shrewdly with them, or else they will grow even more numerous, so that if war breaks out, they may join our enemies, fight against us, and then escape from the land.”
11 So they set slave masters over them to afflict them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Raamses as storage cities for Pharaoh. 12 But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and the more they spread. So the Egyptians dreaded the presence of Bnei-Yisrael. 13 They worked them harshly, 14 and made their lives bitter with hard labor with mortar and brick, doing all sorts of work in the fields. In all their labors they worked them with cruelty.
15 Moreover the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, 16 and said, “When you help the Hebrew women during childbirth, look at the sex. If it’s a son, then kill him, but if it’s a daughter, she may live.” 17 Yet the midwives feared God, so they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the boys live. 18 So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this—let the boys live?”
19 The midwives told Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women. They are like animals,[a] and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” 20 So God was good to the midwives, and the people multiplied, growing very numerous. 21 Because the midwives feared God, He gave them families of their own.
22 But Pharaoh charged all his people saying, “You are to cast every son that is born into the river, but let every daughter live.”
12 For just as the body is one and has many parts, and all the parts of the body—though many—are one body, so also is Messiah. 13 For in one Ruach we were all immersed into one body—whether Jewish or Greek, slave or free—and all were made to drink of one Ruach.
14 For the body is not one part, but many. 15 If the foot says, “Since I’m not a hand, I’m not part of the body,” is it therefore not part of the body? 16 And if the ear says, “Since I’m not an eye, I’m not part of the body,” is it for this reason any less part of the body? 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But now God has placed the parts—each one of them—in the body just as He desired. 19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20 But now there are many parts, yet one body.
21 The eye cannot tell the hand, “I don’t need you!” or in turn the head to the feet, “I don’t need you!” 22 On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be less important are indispensable. 23 Those parts of the body that we think to be less honorable, we clothe with greater honor; and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty; 24 but our presentable parts have no such need. Rather God assembled the body, giving more honor to those who are lacking, 25 so that there may be no division in the body, but so that the parts may have the same care for one another. 26 If one part suffers, all the parts suffer together. If one part is honored, all the parts rejoice together.
27 Now Yeshua and His disciples went out to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way He asked His disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”
28 They told Him, “John the Immerser; and others Elijah; but others, one of the prophets.”[a]
29 Then He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?”
Peter answered Him, “You are the Messiah!” 30 And He warned them not to tell anyone about Him.
Revealing the Mission
31 Then He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and ruling kohanim and Torah scholars, and be killed, and after three days rise again. [b] 32 He was speaking openly about this. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. 33 But turning around and looking at His disciples, He rebuked Peter. He said, “Get behind Me, satan! You are not setting your mind on the things of God, but the things of men.”
34 Then He called the crowd, along with His disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wants to follow after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and keep following Me. 35 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the sake of the Good News will save it. 36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? 37 For what could a man give in exchange for his soul? 38 For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this unfaithful and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels!”
9 Yeshua was telling them, “Amen, I tell you, there are some standing here who will never taste death until they see the kingdom of God come with power!”
Tree of Life (TLV) Translation of the Bible. Copyright © 2015 by The Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society.