Book of Common Prayer
My Help and My Deliverer
Psalm 70
1 For the music director, of David, for a memorial.
2 O God, come quickly to deliver me,
Adonai, to help me.
3 May they be put to shame and disgrace
who seek my life.
May they be turned back in humiliation
who delight in my hurt.
4 May those who say, “Aha! Aha!”
be turned away because of their shame.
5 But may all who seek You
rejoice and be glad in You.
May those who love Your salvation
always say, “Let God be magnified.”
6 But I am poor and needy—
God, come quickly to me.
You are my help and my deliverer—
Adonai, do not delay.
My Hope When I Am Gray
Psalm 71
1 In You, Adonai, have I taken refuge.
Let me never be ashamed.
2 Deliver me and rescue me in Your justice.
Turn Your ear to me and save me.
3 Be to me a sheltering rock where I may always go.
Give the command to save me—
for You are my rock and my fortress.
4 My God, rescue me out of the hand of the wicked,
out of the grasp of an evil, ruthless man.
5 For You are my hope, Adonai my Lord—
my trust from my youth.
6 From my birth I have leaned on You.
You took me out of my mother’s womb.
My praise is always about You.
7 I am like an ominous sign to many,
but You are my strong refuge.
8 My mouth is filled with Your praise
and with Your glory all day.
9 Do not cast me away in the time of old age.
When my strength fails, do not forsake me.
10 For my enemies speak against me.
Those who watch for my soul conspire together,
11 saying: “God has forsaken him—
Pursue and take him, for no one will deliver.”
12 O God, be not far from me!
My God, come quickly to help me.
13 Let the accusers of my soul
be disgraced and destroyed.
Let those who seek to harm me
be covered with scorn and confusion.
14 But I—I will hope continually
and will praise You more and more.
15 My mouth will recount Your justice and Your salvation all day,
though I do not know the sum of them.
16 I come because of the mighty deeds of Adonai my Lord.
I will remember Your righteousness—Yours alone.
17 God, You taught me from my youth,
and I still keep declaring Your wonders.
18 So even until I am old and gray, O God, do not forsake me,
till I tell of Your strong arm to the next generation,
Your might to all who are to come.
19 For Your righteousness, O God,
reaches to high heaven.
You have done great things—O God,
who is like You?
20 You made me see many troubles and evils
—You will revive me again—
from the depths of the earth
You will bring me up again.
21 You will increase my greatness,
and comfort me once again.
22 So I will praise You with the harp for your truth, O my God.
I will sing praises to You with the lyre O Holy One of Israel.
23 My lips will shout for joy
—when I sing praises to You—
and my soul, which You have redeemed.
24 Also my tongue will tell of Your righteousness all day.
For those who seek my hurt have been put to shame and confusion.
Intercession for Restoration of Zion
Psalm 74
1 A contemplative song of Asaph.
Why have You cast us off forever, O God?
Why does Your anger smolder against the flock of Your pasture?
2 Remember Your congregation, which You purchased of old,
redeemed as the tribe of Your inheritance,
and Mount Zion, where You dwelt.
3 Lift Your steps toward the perpetual ruins—
an enemy has done all evil to the Sanctuary!
4 Your adversaries have roared in the midst of Your meeting place.
They have set up their standards as signs.
5 It seemed like bringing up axes
into a thicket of trees—
6 and now all its carved work
they smash with hatchet and hammers!
7 They set Your Sanctuary on fire,
burning it to the ground.
They defiled the dwelling place of Your Name.
8 They said in their hearts: “Let us crush them totally!”
They burned down all the meeting places of God in the land.
9 We do not see our signs.
No longer is there any prophet—
and no one among us knows how long.
10 How long, O God, will the adversary mock?
Will the enemy revile Your Name forever?
11 Why do You hold back Your hand, Your right hand?
Draw it out of Your bosom and consume them!
12 Yet God is my King of old,
working salvation in the midst of the land.
13 You split the sea with Your power.
You smashed the monsters’ heads in the waters.
14 You crushed the heads of Leviathan,
giving him as food to the desert dwellers.
15 You opened up spring and brook.
You dried up ever-flowing rivers.
16 The day is Yours, the night also is Yours.
You provided moon and sun.
17 You set all the borders of earth.
You made summer and winter.
18 Remember how the enemy mocked, Adonai,
and how foolish people despised Your Name.
19 Do not deliver Your turtledove’s soul to the wild beast.
Do not forget the life of Your afflicted ones forever.
20 Look upon the covenant—for haunts of violence
fill the dark places of earth.
21 Do not let the oppressed turn back in shame.
But let the poor and needy praise Your Name.
22 Rise up O God, and defend Your cause.
Remember how the fool mocks You all day.
23 Do not forget the noise of Your foes,
the uproar of those rising up against You,
ascending continually.
29 When they came to their father Jacob, in the land of Canaan, they told him all that had happened to them, saying, 30 “The man, the lord of the land, spoke with us harshly, and took us as spies of the land. 31 But we said to him, ‘We’re honest. We’ve never been spies. 32 We are twelve brothers, sons of our father. One is no more and the youngest is with our father today in the land of Canaan.’ 33 Then the man, the lord of the land, said to us, ‘By this I’ll know if you’re honest: leave one of your brothers with me. As for the hunger of your homes: take and go! 34 Then bring your youngest brother to me, so that I may know you are not spies, but you are honest. I’ll give you back your brother and you can move about freely in the land.’”
35 Now as they were emptying their sacks, behold, there was each man’s bundle of money in his sack. When they saw their money bundles, they and their father, they were afraid.
36 Then their father Jacob said to them, “You’ve made me childless! Joseph is no more. Now Simeon is gone, and next you’ll take Benjamin! Everything is against me!”
37 Then Reuben spoke to his father, saying, “You can put my two sons to death if I don’t bring him back to you. Put him in my hand and I—I will return him to you.”
38 But he said, “My son will not go down with you—for his brother is dead and he alone remains. And if harm should happen to him along the way you’re going, you’ll bring my grey hair down to Sheol in grief.”
12 “Everything is permitted for me”—but not everything is helpful. “Everything is permitted for me”—but I will not be controlled by anything. 13 “Food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food”—but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. 14 Now God raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His power. 15 Don’t you know that your bodies are members of Messiah? Shall I then take the members of Messiah and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be! 16 Or don’t you know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For it is said, “The two shall become one flesh.” [a] 17 But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.
18 Flee from sexual immorality! Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body—but the one committing sexual immorality sins against his own body. 19 Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Ruach ha-Kodesh who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? 20 For you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body.[b]
Reaping What You Sow
21 He also was saying to them, “Is a lamp put under a basket or a bed? No, shouldn’t it be placed on a lampstand? 22 For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed, nor anything kept secret except that it would come to light. 23 If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” 24 Then He continued, “Pay attention to what you hear. With the measure you use, it will be measured to you; and more will be added to you. 25 For whoever has, to him more will be given. And whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.”
What Is the Kingdom of God Like?
26 And He was saying, “The kingdom of God is like when a man spreads seed on the soil 27 and falls asleep at night and gets up by day, and the seed sprouts and grows. He himself doesn’t know how. 28 Automatically, the earth brings forth a crop—first the blade, then the head, then the full grain in the head. 29 But when the grain is ready, at once he sends in the sickle, for the harvest has come.”
30 Yeshua also said, “How should we picture the kingdom of God? Or by what story shall we present it? 31 It is like a mustard seed when it’s planted in the ground. Though the smallest of all seeds in the earth, 32 yet when planted it grows up and becomes the largest of all the herbs. It puts forth big branches, so the birds of the air can nest in its shade.”[a]
33 With many such parables He used to tell them the word, as much as they were able to hear. 34 But apart from a parable, He wasn’t speaking to them. Yet when they were alone, to His own disciples He would explain everything.
Tree of Life (TLV) Translation of the Bible. Copyright © 2015 by The Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society.