Book of Common Prayer
Create in Me a Clean Heart
Psalm 51
1 For the music director: a psalm of David, 2 when Nathan the prophet came to him, after he went to Bathsheba.
3 Be gracious to me, O God,
according to Your mercy.
According to Your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
4 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
5 For I know my transgressions
and my sin is ever before me.
6 Against You, You only, have I sinned,
and done what is evil in Your sight,
so that You are just when You speak,
and blameless when You judge.
7 Behold, I was born in iniquity and in sin
when my mother conceived me.
8 Surely You desire truth in the inner being.
Make me know wisdom inwardly.
9 Cleanse me with hyssop and I will be clean.
Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
10 Let me hear joy and gladness,
so the bones You crushed may rejoice.
11 Hide Your face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.
12 Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
13 Do not cast me from Your presence—
take not Your Ruach ha-Kodesh from me.
14 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation
and sustain me with a willing spirit.
15 Then will I teach transgressors Your ways
and sinners will return to You.
16 Deliver me from bloodguilt, O God—
God of my salvation.
Then my tongue will sing for joy of Your righteousness.
17 O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare Your praise.
18 For You would not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it,
nor be pleased by burnt offerings.
19 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit.
A broken and a contrite heart, O God,
You will not despise.
20 In Your favor do good to Zion.
Build up the walls of Jerusalem.
21 Then You will delight in righteous sacrifices and whole burnt offerings.
Then bulls will be offered on Your altar.
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.
Song of Jerusalem’s Groaning
1 How lonely sits the city,
once so full of people!
She who was once great among the nations
has become like a widow.
The princess among the provinces
has become a forced laborer.
2 Bitterly she weeps in the night,
her tears are on her cheeks.
Among all her lovers,
there is no one to comfort her.
All her friends have betrayed her.
They have become her enemies!
6 All her splendor has departed,
from the daughter of Zion.
Her princes are like stags
that find no pasture.
They have fled without strength
before the pursuer.
7 In the days of her affliction
and her wandering,
Jerusalem remembers all the treasures
that were hers from the days of old.
When her people fell into enemy hands,
there was no one to help her.
Her enemies saw her
and mocked at her destruction.
8 Jerusalem has greatly sinned—
therefore, she has become niddah.
All who honored her despise her,
for they have seen her nakedness.
She herself groans,
and turns away.
9 Her uncleanness was in her skirts.
She did not consider her future.
Her demise was astonishing,
there was no one to comfort her.
“Adonai, see my affliction,
for the enemy has triumphed!”
10 The enemy has stretched his hand
over all her treasures.
She even saw nations
enter her sanctuary—
those You had commanded
not to enter Your congregation.
11 All her people groan,
as they seek bread.
They traded their treasures for food
to keep themselves alive.
“Look, Adonai, and see!
For I have become despised!”
12 “Is it nothing to you,
all you who pass by on the road?
Look and see!
Is any suffering like my suffering
that was brought on me,
that Adonai has inflicted
in the day of His fierce anger?
Greetings
1 Paul, an emissary of Messiah Yeshua through the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
To God’s community at Corinth, with all the kedoshim who are throughout Achaia:
2 Grace to you and shalom from God our Father and the Lord Yeshua the Messiah.
Encouragement Through Hardships
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah, the Father of compassion and God of all encouragement. 4 He encourages us in every trouble, so that we may be able to encourage those who are in any trouble, through the very encouragement with which we ourselves are encouraged by God. 5 For just as the sufferings of Messiah overflow into us, so also through Messiah our encouragement overflows. 6 If we are suffering hardship, it is for your encouragement and salvation. Or if we are encouraged, it is for your encouragement, which produces in you the patient endurance of the same sufferings that we also suffer. 7 Our hope for you is firm, since we know that as you are partners in our sufferings, so also in our encouragement.
The Fruit of the Faithful
12 The next day, when they had left Bethany, He became hungry. 13 Seeing from a distance a fig tree in leaf, He went to see if He would find any fruit on it. When He came up to it, He found nothing except leaves, because it wasn’t the season for figs. 14 And He said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again!” And His disciples were listening.
15 Then they came to Jerusalem. And He entered the Temple and started to drive out those selling and buying in the Temple. He overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those selling doves, 16 and He wouldn’t let anyone carry goods through the Temple. 17 And He began to teach them, saying, “Is it not written,
‘My house shall be called
a house of prayer for all the nations’?[a]
But you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’”[b]
18 The ruling kohanim and Torah scholars heard this and began looking for a way to destroy Him; for they were afraid of Him, because the whole crowd was astonished at His teaching. 19 Whenever evening came, Yeshua and His disciples would leave the city.
20 As they were passing by in the morning, they saw the fig tree shriveled from the roots. 21 Peter remembered and said to Yeshua, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree You cursed has shriveled up!”
22 And Yeshua answered, saying to them, “Have faith in God! 23 Amen, I tell you, if someone says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but trusts that what he says is happening, so shall it be for him. 24 For this reason I say to you, whatever you pray and ask, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. 25 Whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your transgressions.”
Tree of Life (TLV) Translation of the Bible. Copyright © 2015 by The Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society.