Book of Common Prayer
Restore Us, Revive Us
Psalm 80
1 For the music director, on “Lilies,”[a] a testimony: a psalm of Asaph.
2 Give ear, Shepherd of Israel,
You who lead Joseph like a flock.
You who are enthroned upon the cheruvim, shine forth!
3 Before Ephraim, Benjamin and Manasseh,
stir up Your might, and come to save us.
4 O God, restore us, make Your face shine,
and we will be saved.
5 Adonai-Tzva’ot, how long will You be angry
with the prayer of Your people?
6 You have fed them the bread of tears
and made them drink a measure of tears.
7 You make us a contention to our neighbors,
and our enemies mock as they please.
8 Elohei-Tzva’ot, restore us, and make Your face shine,
and we will be saved.
9 You pulled out a vine from Egypt.
You drove out nations and planted it.
10 You cleared a place for it,
and it took deep root and filled the land.
11 The mountains were covered by its shade,
the mighty cedars with its branches.
12 It sent out its branches to the sea,
and its shoots to the river.
13 Why have You broken down its fences,
so all who pass by the way pick its fruit?
14 A boar from the forest ravages it,
whatever moves in the field feeds on it.
15 Elohei-Tzva’ot, please return!
Look down from heaven and see!
Now take care of this vine—
16 the shoot Your right hand planted—
the son You strengthened for Yourself.
17 It is burned with fire, it is cut down.
They perish from the rebuke of Your face.
18 Let Your hand be upon the man of Your right hand—
the son of man
You made strong for Yourself.
19 Then we will not turn away from You.
Revive us, and we will call on Your Name.
20 Adonai Elohei-Tzva’ot, restore us.
Make Your face shine, and we will be saved.
Remember the Wonders
Psalm 77
1 For the music director, on Jeduthun: a psalm of Asaph.
2 My voice to God—and I cried out,
my voice to God—and He heard me!
3 In the day of my trouble I seek my Lord.
At night my hand stretches out untiringly.
My soul refuses to be comforted.
4 I remember God and I moan.
I muse, and my spirit grows faint. Selah
5 You hold my eyelids open—
I am so troubled—I cannot speak.
6 I ponder the days of old,
the years long ago.
7 In the night I remember my song.
I meditate with my heart
and my spirit is searching.
8 “Will the Lord reject forever
and never again show favor?
9 Has His mercy vanished forever?
Has His promise come to an end forever?
10 Has God forgotten to be gracious?
Or has He in anger withdrawn his mercies?” Selah
11 Then I said: “It wounds me—
that the right hand of Elyon has changed.”
12 I will remember the deeds of Adonai.
Yes, I will muse about Your wonders of old.
13 I will meditate also on all Your work
and consider Your deeds.”
14 O God, Your way is holy.
What god is great like God?
15 You are the God who works wonders.
You have made Your power known among the peoples.
16 With your arm You redeemed Your people,
the children of Jacob and Joseph. Selah
17 The waters saw You, O God,
the waters saw You and writhed,
even the depths shook.
18 The clouds poured out water,
the skies resounded,
Your arrows flashed back and forth.
19 The sound of Your thunder was in the whirlwind.
Lightning lit up the world.
The earth trembled and shook.
20 Your way was in the sea,
and Your path in the mighty waters,
but Your footprints were not seen.
21 You led Your people like a flock,
by the hand of Moses and Aaron.
A Lament Over Jerusalem
Psalm 79
1 A Psalm of Asaph.
God, the nations have invaded Your inheritance,
defiled Your holy Temple,
and reduced Jerusalem to ruins.
2 They gave the carcasses of Your servants as food to the birds of the skies,
the flesh of Your kedoshim to the beasts of the earth.
3 They poured out their blood like water all around Jerusalem,
and there was no one to bury them.
4 We have become a taunt to our neighbors,
a scorn and derision to those around us.
5 How long, Adonai, will You be angry?
Forever?
Will Your jealousy keep blazing like fire?
6 Pour out Your wrath
on the nations that do not acknowledge You,
on the kingdoms that do not call on Your name.
7 For they have devoured Jacob
and laid waste his country.
8 Do not hold against us the sins of our fathers.
May Your mercies come quickly to meet us,
for we are brought very low.
9 Help us, God of our salvation—
for the sake of the glory of Your Name.
Deliver us, and atone for our sins—
for Your name’s sake.
10 Why should the nations say:
“Where is their God?”
Before our eyes, let it be known among the nations
that You avenge the shed blood of Your servants.
11 Let the prisoner’s groan come to You.
By Your great arm preserve those who are doomed to die.
12 Pay back into the midst of our neighbors sevenfold their reproach—
the reproach they hurled at You, my Lord.
13 So we, Your people, the flock of Your pasture,
will praise You forever.
From generation to generation
we will recount Your praise.
Levites Tell Israel’s Story
9 Now on the twenty-fourth day of this same month, Bnei-Yisrael gathered together, fasting and wearing sackcloth and putting dust on their heads. 2 The offspring of Israel separated themselves from all foreigners, standing and confessing their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. 3 They stood in their place and read in the scroll of the Torah of Adonai their God for a quarter of the day; and for another quarter they were confessing and prostrating themselves before Adonai their God.
4 Then the Levites—Jeshua, Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Chenani—stood on the platform and cried out with a loud voice to Adonai their God. 5 The Levites—Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah—said: “Stand up! Bless Adonai your God, from everlasting to everlasting! May Your glorious Name be blessed; may it be exalted above all blessing and praise. 6 You alone are Adonai. You made the heavens, even the highest heaven with all its array,[a] the earth and everything on it, the seas and everything in them. You give life to them all, and the multitudes of heaven worship You.
7 “You are Adonai, the God who chose Abram, brought him from Ur of the Chaldeans and gave him the name Abraham. 8 You found his heart faithful before You and made the covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanite, Hittite, Amorite, Perizzite, Jebusite and the Girgashite to his seed. You have fulfilled Your words, for You are righteous.
9 “You saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt and heard their cry by the Sea of Reeds. 10 You gave signs and wonders against Pharaoh, all his servants, and all the people of his land, for You knew how insolently they treated them. You made a name for Yourself which remains to this day. 11 You divided the sea before them, so that they passed through the midst of the sea on dry land! But their pursuers You threw into the depths like a stone into mighty waters. 12 You led them with a pillar of cloud by day and with a pillar of fire by night to illuminate for them the way they were to go.
13 “You descended on Mount Sinai and spoke with them from heaven. You gave them just judgments, reliable laws, and good statutes and mitzvot. 14 You made known to them Your holy Shabbat and ordained for them mitzvot, statutes and Torah by the hand of Your servant Moses. 15 You gave them bread from heaven for their hunger, and brought them water from the rock for their thirst. You told them to go in to possess the land that You had sworn to give them.[b]
16 “But they, our ancestors, became arrogant. They stiffened their neck and did not obey Your mitzvot. 17 They refused to obey and did not remember Your wonders that You did among them. Instead, they became stiff-necked and in their rebellion, appointed a leader in order to return to their bondage. But You are a God of forgiveness, merciful and compassionate, slow to anger, and abounding in love. Therefore You did not abandon them, 18 even when they made a cast image of a calf for themselves and said, ‘This is your god who brought you up from Egypt!’ or when they committed great blasphemies.
19 “Yet in Your great compassion You did not abandon them in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud by day did not depart from above them, guiding them in the way, nor the pillar of fire by night, illuminating the way they should go. 20 You also gave Your good Ruach to teach them. You did not withhold Your manna from their mouth and You gave them water for their thirst. 21 For forty years You sustained them in the desert: they lacked nothing, their garments did not wear out and their feet did not swell.
22 “You gave them kingdoms and peoples and You allotted them their boundaries of the land. They possessed the land of Sihon king of Heshbon and the country of Og king of Bashan. 23 You multiplied their descendants like the stars of heaven, and You brought them into the land that You told their ancestors to enter and inherit. 24 So the children went in and possessed the land. You subdued before them the Canaanites who were the inhabitants of the land. You delivered them into their hands, along with their kings and the peoples of the land to deal with them as they pleased. 25 They captured fortified cities and fertile land. They took possession of houses full of every good thing—hewn cisterns, vineyards, olive groves, and an abundance of fruit trees. They ate and were satisfied, and grew fat. They enjoyed Your great goodness.
Judgment of Babylon
18 After these things, I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illuminated by his glory. 2 He cried out with a mighty voice, saying:
“Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great![a]
She has become a den for demons,
a haunt for every unclean spirit
and for every unclean bird
and for every unclean and detestable beast.[b]
3 For all the nations have drunk
of the wine of the fury of her immorality.
The kings of the earth have committed
sexual immorality with her,
and the merchants of the earth
grew rich off the power
of her self-indulgence.”
4 Then I heard another voice from heaven saying,
“Come out of her, my people,[c]
lest you participate in her sins
and receive her plagues!
5 For her sins have piled up to heaven,[d]
and God has remembered her crimes.
6 Pay her back just as she has paid out,
and give her back double for her deeds![e]
In the cup she has mixed—
mix a double dose for her!
7 As she has exalted herself and indulged herself in luxury,
so give her the same measure of torment and grief!
For in her heart she says,
‘I sit as a queen—
I am no widow;
I shall never see grief.’[f]
8 For this reason her plagues will arrive in
a single day—
death and grief and famine—
and she shall be burned down with fire.[g]
For mighty is Adonai Elohim who judges her!”
Religious Leaders Quiz Yeshua
15 Then some Pharisees and Torah scholars came to Yeshua from Jerusalem. They said, 2 “Why do Your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not do the ritual handwashing when they eat bread.”
3 And answering, He said to them, “Why do you also transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’[a] and ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother must be put to death.’ [b] 5 But you say, ‘Whoever tells his father or mother, “Whatever you might have gained from me is a gift to God,” [c] 6 he need not honor his father.’ On account of your tradition, you made void the word of God. 7 Hypocrites! Rightly did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying,
8 ‘This people honors Me with their lips,
but their heart is far from Me.
9 And in vain they worship Me,
teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”[d]
10 Then Yeshua called the crowd and said to them, “Hear and understand. 11 It’s not what goes into the mouth that makes the man unholy; but what comes out of the mouth, this makes the man unholy.”[e]
12 Then the disciples came and said to Him, “Do You know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard this saying?”
13 But He replied, “Every plant that My heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. 14 Leave them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.”
15 Then Peter answered and said to Him, “Explain this parable to us.”
16 “Are you also still lacking understanding?” Yeshua said. 17 “Don’t you grasp that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and then is ejected into the sewer? 18 But the things that proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart, and those things make the man unholy. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, and slander. [f] 20 These are the things that make the man unholy; but to eat with unwashed hands does not make the man unholy.”
Tree of Life (TLV) Translation of the Bible. Copyright © 2015 by The Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society.