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.
7 Then Yeruba‘al, that is, Gid‘on, and all the people with him, got up early and set up camp by ‘Ein-Harod; the camp of Midyan was north of them, by Giv‘at-Moreh, in the valley. 2 Adonai said to Gid‘on, “There are too many people with you for me to hand Midyan over to them, because I don’t want Isra’el to be able to boast against me, ‘We saved ourselves by our own strength.’ 3 Therefore, proclaim to the people ‘Anyone who is anxious or afraid should go back home, while we stay here on Mount Gil‘ad.’” Twenty-two thousand returned, but ten thousand remained.
4 Adonai said to Gid‘on, “There are still too many people. Have them come down to the water, and there I will screen them for you. If I say of anyone, ‘This one is for you,’ he will go with you; and if I say, ‘This one is not for you,’ he won’t go with you.” 5 So he brought the people down to the water, and Adonai said to Gid‘on, “Put to one side everyone who laps up water with his tongue the way a dog does, and put to the other side everyone who gets down on his knees to drink.” 6 Three hundred lapped, putting their hand to their mouth; all the rest of the men got down on their knees to drink water. 7 Adonai said to Gid‘on, “I will use the three hundred men who lapped the water to save you; I will hand Midyan over to you. Let all these others go back home.” 8 So they took the provisions and the shofars of the people; then he sent all the men of Isra’el away, each to his tent. But the three hundred men he kept.
The camp of Midyan was in the valley below him. 9 That night Adonai said to him, “Get up and attack the camp, because I have handed it over to you. 10 But if you are afraid to attack, go down with your servant Purah; 11 and after you hear what they are saying, you will have the courage to attack the camp.” So with his servant Purah he went down to the outposts of the camp. 12 Now Midyan, ‘Amalek and all the others from the east had settled in the valley as thick as locusts; their camels too were beyond counting, like the sand on the seashore. 13 Gid‘on got there just as a man was telling a comrade about a dream he had had: “I just now dreamt that a loaf of barley bread fell into the camp of Midyan, came to the tent and struck it so hard that it overturned the tent and knocked it flat.” 14 His comrade answered, “This can only be the sword of Gid‘on son of Yo’ash, a man of Isra’el. God has given Midyan and all its army into his hands.”
15 When Gid‘on heard the dream and its interpretation, he fell on his knees in worship. Then he returned to the camp of Isra’el and said, “Get up! because Adonai has handed Midyan’s army over to you.” 16 He divided the three hundred men into three companies. He put in the hands of all of them shofars and empty pitchers with torches in them. 17 Then he said to them, “Watch me, and do what I do. When I get to the edge of the camp, whatever I do, you do the same. 18 When I and everyone with me blow the shofar, then you blow your shofars all around the whole camp, and shout, “For Adonai and for Gid‘on!”
3 One afternoon at three o’clock, the hour of minchah prayers, as Kefa and Yochanan were going up to the Temple, 2 a man crippled since birth was being carried in. Every day people used to put him at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple, so that he could beg from those going into the Temple court. 3 When he saw Kefa and Yochanan about to enter, he asked them for some money. 4 But they stared straight at him; and Kefa said, “Look at us!” 5 The crippled man fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. 6 Kefa said, “I don’t have silver, and I don’t have gold, but what I do have I give to you: in the name of the Messiah, Yeshua of Natzeret, walk!” 7 And taking hold of him by his right hand, Kefa pulled him up. Instantly his feet and ankles became strong; 8 so that he sprang up, stood a moment, and began walking. Then he entered the Temple court with them, walking and leaping and praising God! 9 Everyone saw him walking and praising God. 10 They recognized him as the same man who had formerly sat begging at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple, and they were utterly amazed and confounded at what had happened to him. 11 While he clung to Kefa and Yochanan, all the people came running in astonishment toward them in Shlomo’s Colonnade.
19 Here is Yochanan’s testimony: when the Judeans sent cohanim and L’vi’im from Yerushalayim to ask him, “Who are you?” 20 he was very straightforward and stated clearly, “I am not the Messiah.” 21 “Then who are you?” they asked him. “Are you Eliyahu?” “No, I am not,” he said. “Are you ‘the prophet,’ the one we’re expecting?” “No,” he replied. 22 So they said to him, “Who are you? — so that we can give an answer to the people who sent us. What do you have to say about yourself?” 23 He answered in the words of Yesha‘yahu the prophet, “I am
The voice of someone crying out:
‘In the desert make the way of Adonai straight!’”[a]
24 Some of those who had been sent were P’rushim. 25 They asked him, “If you are neither the Messiah nor Eliyahu nor ‘the prophet,’ then why are you immersing people?” 26 To them Yochanan replied, “I am immersing people in water, but among you is standing someone whom you don’t know. 27 He is the one coming after me — I’m not good enough even to untie his sandal!” 28 All this took place in Beit-Anyah, east of the Yarden, where Yochanan was immersing.
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.