Book of Common Prayer
78 (0) A maskil of Asaf:
(1) Listen, my people, to my teaching;
turn your ears to the words from my mouth.
2 I will speak to you in parables
and explain mysteries from days of old.
3 The things which we have heard and known,
and which our fathers told us
4 we will not hide from their descendants;
we will tell the generation to come
the praises of Adonai and his strength,
the wonders that he has performed.
5 He raised up a testimony in Ya‘akov
and established a Torah in Isra’el.
He commanded our ancestors
to make this known to their children,
6 so that the next generation would know it,
the children not yet born,
who would themselves arise
and tell their own children,
7 who could then put their confidence in God,
not forgetting God’s deeds,
but obeying his mitzvot.
8 Then they would not be like their ancestors,
a stubborn, rebellious generation,
a generation with unprepared hearts,
with spirits unfaithful to God.
9 The people of Efrayim, though armed with bows and arrows,
turned their backs on the day of battle.
10 They did not keep the covenant of God
and refused to live by his Torah.
11 They forgot what he had done,
his wonders which he had shown them.
12 He had done wonderful things
in the presence of their ancestors
in the land of Egypt,
in the region of Tzo‘an.
13 He split the sea and made them pass through,
he made the waters stand up like a wall.
14 He also led them by day with a cloud
and all night long with light from a fire.
15 He broke apart the rocks in the desert
and let them drink as if from boundless depths;
16 yes, he brought streams out of the rock,
making the water flow down like rivers.
17 Yet they sinned still more against him,
rebelling in the wilderness against the Most High;
18 in their hearts they tested God
by demanding food that would satisfy their cravings.
19 Yes, they spoke against God by asking,
“Can God spread a table in the desert?
20 True, he struck the rock, and water gushed out,
until the vadis overflowed;
but what about bread? Can he give that?
Can he provide meat for his people?”
21 Therefore, when Adonai heard, he was angry;
fire blazed up against Ya‘akov;
his anger mounted against Isra’el;
22 because they had no faith in God,
no trust in his power to save.
23 So he commanded the skies above
and opened the doors of heaven.
24 He rained down man on them as food;
he gave them grain from heaven —
25 mortals ate the bread of angels;
he provided for them to the full.
26 He stirred up the east wind in heaven,
brought on the south wind by his power,
27 and rained down meat on them like dust,
birds flying thick as the sand on the seashore.
28 He let them fall in the middle of their camp,
all around their tents.
29 So they ate till they were satisfied;
he gave them what they craved.
30 They were still fulfilling their craving,
the food was still in their mouths,
31 when the anger of God rose up against them
and slaughtered their strongest men,
laying low the young men of Isra’el.
32 Still, they kept on sinning
and put no faith in his wonders.
33 Therefore, he ended their days in futility
and their years in terror.
34 When he brought death among them, they would seek him;
they would repent and seek God eagerly,
35 remembering that God was their Rock,
El ‘Elyon their Redeemer.
36 But they tried to deceive him with their words,
they lied to him with their tongues;
37 for their hearts were not right with him,
and they were unfaithful to his covenant.
38 Yet he, because he is full of compassion,
forgave their sin and did not destroy;
many times he turned away his anger
and didn’t rouse all his wrath.
39 So he remembered that they were but flesh,
a wind that blows past and does not return.
40 How often they rebelled against him in the desert
and grieved him in the wastelands!
41 Repeatedly they challenged God
and pained the Holy One of Isra’el.
42 They didn’t remember how he used his hand
on the day he redeemed them from their enemy,
43 how he displayed his signs in Egypt,
his wonders in the region of Tzo‘an.
44 He turned their rivers into blood,
so they couldn’t drink from their streams.
45 He sent swarms of flies, which devoured them,
and frogs, which destroyed them.
46 He gave their harvest to shearer-worms,
the fruit of their labor to locusts.
47 He destroyed their vineyards with hail
and their sycamore-figs with frost.
48 Their cattle too he gave over to the hail
and their flocks to lightning bolts.
49 He sent over them his fierce anger,
fury, indignation and trouble,
with a company of destroying angels
50 to clear a path for his wrath.
He did not spare them from death,
but gave them over to the plague,
51 striking all the firstborn in Egypt,
the firstfruits of their strength in the tents of Ham.
52 But his own people he led out like sheep,
guiding them like a flock in the desert.
53 He led them safely, and they weren’t afraid,
even when the sea overwhelmed their foes.
54 He brought them to his holy land,
to the hill-country won by his right hand.
55 He expelled nations before them,
apportioned them property to inherit
and made Isra’el’s tribes live in their tents.
56 Yet they tested El ‘Elyon
and rebelled against him,
refusing to obey his instructions.
57 They turned away and were faithless, like their fathers;
they were unreliable, like a bow without tension.
58 They provoked him with their high places
and made him jealous with their idols.
59 God heard, and he was angry;
he came to detest Isra’el completely.
60 He abandoned the tabernacle at Shiloh,
the tent he had made where he could live among people.
61 He gave his strength into exile,
his pride to the power of the foe.
62 He gave his people over to the sword
and grew angry with his own heritage.
63 Fire consumed their young men,
their virgins had no wedding-song,
64 their cohanim fell by the sword,
and their widows could not weep.
65 Then Adonai awoke, as if from sleep,
like a warrior shouting for joy from wine.
66 He struck his foes, driving them back
and putting them to perpetual shame.
67 Rejecting the tents of Yosef
and passing over the tribe of Efrayim,
68 he chose the tribe of Y’hudah,
Mount Tziyon, which he loved.
69 He built his sanctuary like the heights;
like the earth, he made it to last forever.
70 He chose David to be his servant,
taking him from the sheep-yards;
71 from tending nursing ewes he brought him
to shepherd Ya‘akov his people,
Isra’el his heritage.
72 With upright heart he shepherded them
and guided them with skillful hands.
59 Adonai’s arm is not too short to save,
nor is his ear too dull to hear.
2 Rather, it is your own crimes
that separate you from your God;
your sins have hidden his face from you,
so that he doesn’t hear.
3 For your hands are stained with blood
and your fingers with crime;
your lips speak lies,
your tongues utter wicked things.
4 No one sues with just cause,
no one pleads honestly in court,
they trust in empty words
and say worthless things;
they conceive trouble
and give birth to evil.
5 They hatch viper eggs
and spin spiderwebs;
whoever eats their eggs dies,
and the crushed egg hatches a snake.
6 Their webs are useless as clothing,
their deeds are useless for wearing;
their deeds are deeds of wickedness,
their hands produce violence.
7 Their feet run to evil,
they rush to shed innocent blood,
their thoughts are thoughts of wickedness,
their paths lead to havoc and ruin.
8 The way of shalom they do not know,
their goings-about obey no law,
they make devious paths for themselves;
no one treading them will ever know shalom.
9 This is why justice is far from us,
and righteousness doesn’t catch up with us;
we look for light, but see only darkness,
for brightness, but we walk in gloom.
10 We grope for the wall like the blind;
like people without eyes we feel our way;
we stumble at noonday as if it were dusk,
we are in dark places like the dead.
11 We growl, all of us, like bears
and moan pitifully like doves;
we look for justice, but there is none;
for salvation, but it is far from us.
12 For our crimes multiply before you,
our sins testify against us;
for our crimes are present with us;
and our sins, we know them well:
13 rebelling and denying Adonai,
turning away from following our God,
talking about oppression and revolt,
uttering lies which our hearts have conceived.
14 Thus justice is repelled,
righteousness stands apart, at a distance;
for truth stumbles in the public court,
and uprightness cannot enter.
15 Honesty is lacking,
he who leaves evil becomes a target.
Adonai saw it, and it displeased him
that there was no justice.
1 From: Sha’ul, an emissary of the Messiah Yeshua by God’s will, which holds forth a promise of life through being united with Messiah Yeshua
2 To: Timothy, my dear son:
Grace, mercy and shalom from God the Father and the Messiah Yeshua, our Lord.
3 I give thanks to God, whom, like my forbears, I worship with a clean conscience, as I regularly remember you in my prayers night and day. 4 I am reminded of your tears, and I long to see you, so that I might be filled with joy. 5 I recall your sincere trust, the same trust that your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice had first; and I am convinced that you too now have this trust.
6 For this reason, I am reminding you to fan the flame of God’s gift, which you received through s’mikhah from me. 7 For God gave us a Spirit who produces not timidity, but power, love and self-discipline. 8 So don’t be ashamed of bearing testimony to our Lord or to me, his prisoner. On the contrary, accept your share in suffering disgrace for the sake of the Good News. God will give you the strength for it, 9 since he delivered us and called us to a life of holiness as his people. It was not because of our deeds, but because of his own purpose and the grace which he gave to us who are united with the Messiah Yeshua. He did this before the beginning of time, 10 but made it public only now through the appearing of our Deliverer, the Messiah Yeshua, who abolished death and, through the Good News, revealed life and immortality.
11 It was for this Good News that I was appointed a proclaimer, emissary and teacher of the Goyim; 12 and this is why I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, because I know him in whom I have put my trust, and I am persuaded that he can keep safe until that Day what he has entrusted to me. 13 Follow the pattern of the sound teachings you have heard from me, with trust and the love which is yours in the Messiah Yeshua. 14 Keep safe the great treasure that has been entrusted to you, with the help of the Ruach HaKodesh, who lives in us.
42 “Whoever ensnares one of these little ones who trust me — it would be better for him to have a millstone hung around his neck and be thrown in the sea. 43 If your hand makes you sin, cut it off! Better that you should be maimed but obtain eternal life, rather than keep both hands and go to Gei-Hinnom, to unquenchable fire! 44 [a] 45 And if your foot makes you sin, cut it off! Better that you should be lame but obtain eternal life, rather than keep both feet and be thrown into Gei-Hinnom! 46 [b] 47 And if your eye makes you sin, pluck it out! Better that you should be one-eyed but enter the Kingdom of God, rather than keep both eyes and be thrown into Gei-Hinnom,
48 where their worm does not die,
and the fire is not quenched.[c]
49 Indeed, everyone is going to be salted with fire. 50 Salt is excellent, but if it loses its saltiness, how will you season it? So have salt in yourselves — that is, be at peace with each other.”
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.