Read the New Testament in 24 Weeks
4 From where do milchamot (wars) come? What is their goirem (driving force)? And from where come fights among you? Is it not from here, from the ta’avot (lusts) of you warring in your evarim (members)?
2 You lust for something and you do not have it; you kill and you envy and you are not able to obtain. You get involved in machalokot (divisions of dissensions) and fights. You do not have because you fail to daven with your request.
3 Or you make techinot (petitions) and you do not receive, because you ask wrongly, that on your ta’avot (lusts) you may spend what you receive. [TEHILLIM 18:41; 66:18]
4 No’efot (adulterers)! Do you not have da’as that to have shaichus (closeness, friendship, intimacy) with the Olam Hazeh is eyvah im Hashem (enmity with G-d)? Therefore, whoever chooses to make the Olam Hazeh his Oihev is made an Oyev (Enemy) of Hashem. [YESHAYAH 54:4; YIRMEYAH 3:20; HOSHEA 2:2-5; 3:1; 9:1]
5 Or do you think that in vain the Kitvei Hakodesh attests that Hashem yearns jealously over the Ruach Hakodesh He causes to dwell in us?
6 But He gives all the more Chen v’Chesed! Therefore it says, "Hashem LALETZIM HU YALITZ V’LA’ANAYIM YITEN CHEN ("Hashem opposes the proud mocker but gives grace to the humble" [MISHLE 3:34]).
7 Submit yourselves in mishma’at (obedience) to Hashem. Resist Hasatan, and he will flee from you.
8 Draw near to Hashem and Hashem will draw near to you. Cleanse your yadayim (hands), you chote’im (sinners)! And purify your levavot, you anashim of double mind! [TEHILLIM 73:28; ZECHARYAH 1:3; MALACHI 3:7; YESHAYAH 1:16; TEHILLIM 24:4; 119:113; YIRMEYAH 4:14]
9 Lament and mourn and weep. Let the tzechok (laughter) of you be changed to avelut (mourning), and the simcha of you be turned to tugah (sadness).
10 Be humbled before Hashem and He will exalt you. [IYOV 5:11]
11 Do not speak lashon hora against an Ach b’Moshiach. The one speaking against an Ach b’Moshiach or setting himself up as a shofet (judge) of his Ach b’Moshiach speaks against the Torah and sets himself up as shofet of the Torah. Now if the Torah you judge, you are not Shomrei HaTorah but a shofet.
12 One is the Mekhokek (Law-Giver) and HaShofet (The Judge), the One who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you, the one who has set yourself up as the shofet of your re’a (neighbor)?
13 Come now, you who say, "Hayom (today) or makhar (tomorrow) we will go into this or that city and we will do business there a year and will sell and make a revach (profit)."
14 Yet you do not even have da’as of what tomorrow’s "yom" may bring. Look at your life! Are you not an ed (mist), appearing a short time, then indeed disappearing? [IYOV 7:7; TEHILLIM 39:5; 102:3; 144:4; YESHAYAH 2:22]
15 Instead of this, you ought to say "Im yirtzeh Hashem" ("if the L-rd wills") "we will live, also we will do this or that."
16 But now you boast in your pretensions. All such ravrevanut (boastfulness) is ra’ah (evil, wickedness).
17 To the one having da’as, therefore, knowing to do tov and not doing it, to him it is chet.
5 Come now, you who have osher (riches), weep, howling over your miseries coming upon you. [YESHAYAH 13:6; YECHEZKEL 30:2]
2 The osher of you has rotted and your malbush has become moth-eaten. [IYOV 13:28; TEHILLIM 39:11; YESHAYAH 50:9]
3 The gold of you and the silver has been corroded and the corrosion of them will be for a solemn eidus against you, and will eat the basar of you as Eish. You stored up otzar (treasure) in the Acharit Hayamim!
4 Hinei, the wages of the po’alim (workers) who cut your fields, the wages you fraudulently withheld, those wages cry out, and the cries of the harvesting po’alim have reached the ears of Adonoi Tz’vaot. [VAYIKRA 19:13; YIRMEYAH 22:13; MALACHI 3:5; DEVARIM 24:15]
5 You lived in indulgence upon ha’aretz and lolled in a life of luxury, you fattened your levavot as in a Yom Tivchah ("Day of Slaughter.” [YIRMEYAH 12:3; 25:34; YESHAYAH 53:7]
6 You condemned, you killed the tzaddik, who does not resist you.
7 Have zitzfleisch (patience), therefore, Achim b’Moshiach, until the Bias HaMoshiach, the Coming of Moshiach Adoneinu. Hinei, the ikar (farmer) awaits the precious p’ri haAdamah (fruit of the earth), having zitzfleisch (patience) for it until it receives the Yoreh (first autumn rain) and the Malkosh (spring rain). [Dt 11:14; Jer 5:24; Joel 2:23]
8 You must also have zitzfleisch. Strengthen your levavot, because the Bias HaMoshiach, the Coming of Moshiach Adoneinu, has drawn near.
9 Do not murmur, Achim b’Moshiach, against one another, lest you be judged. Hinei, haShofet is standing before the delet! [SHEMOT 15:24; 16:2; 17:3; BAMIDBAR 14:2,29; 16:41; TEHILLIM 94:2]
10 Achim b’Moshiach, take as an example, of yissurim (suffering) and of zitzfleisch (patience) the Nevi’im who spoke b’Shem Adonoi.
11 Hinei, we call me’ashirim the ones having endured: the enduring orech ru’ach (patience) of Iyov you heard of, and the toitzaa (outcome) from Hashem you saw, that Eloheinu is full of rachamim and channun Hashem. [Job 1:21,22; 2:10; 42:10,12-17; Ex 34:6; Num 14:18; Ps 103:8]
12 But, above all, my Achim b’Moshiach, do not swear shevuot (oaths) neither by Shomayim nor by ha’aretz nor any other shevu’ah, but let your "ken" be "ken," and your "lo" be "lo," for fear that you fall under HaDin (the Judgment).
13 If anyone is suffering among you, let him daven. If anyone has simcha, let him sing niggunim. [Ps 50:15]
14 Are there any cholim (sick ones) among you? Let the choleh (sick person) summon [for Bikkur Cholim (Visiting the Sick)] the Ziknei HaKehillah (Elders of the Congregation) and let them daven tefillos over him, having applied the shemen mishchah (anointing oil), b’Shem Adoneinu. [Ps 23:5; Isa 1:6]
15 And the tefillah of emunah will deliver the choleh (sick person), and Hashem will raise him up. And if he may have been committing peysha’im, he will be given selicha (forgiveness).
16 Therefore, make vidduy (confession of sin) to one another, and daven tefillos on behalf of one another, so that you may have refuah sheleimah (complete healing). The tefillah of a tzaddik is powerful and effective.
17 Eliyahu [HaNavi] was a man of like nature to us, and with tefillah he davened for it not to rain, and it did not rain upon ha’aretz for shalosh shanim and shishah chodashim (three years and six months). [MELACHIM ALEF 17:1]
18 And again Eliyahu [HaNavi] davened, and Shomayim gave GESHEM (rain) and ha’aretz caused its p’ri to sprout. [MELACHIM ALEF 18:45]
19 My Achim b’Moshiach, if anyone among you wanders vait (astray) from HaEmes and someone turns a choteh (sinner) to become a ba’al teshuva
20 You should have da’as that the one having helped a choteh (sinner) to become a ba’al teshuva and to turn from the toyus (error) of his derech, and from setiyah HaDerech Hashem (turning aside or deviating from the Way of Hashem) will save the neshamah of him from mavet and will cover a multitude of chatta’im. [T.N. This may be the earliest writing in the Brit Chadasha. Of royal blood, Ya’akov Bar Yosef Ben Dovid, like Rav Sha’ul, was an unbeliever until he came to faith by the appearance of the Risen Moshiach (see I Cor 15:7). He died al kiddush ha-Shem 62 C.E. according to Josephus. His brother Yehuda wrote the letter on p.1118. See p848.]
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