Old/New Testament

120 (Shir HaMa’a- lot [Song of Ascents]) In my tzoros I cried unto Hashem, and He heard me.

² Save my nefesh, Hashem, from sefat sheker (lying lips), and from lashon remiyyah (a tongue of deceit).

³ What shall be given unto thee? Or what shall be done unto thee, thou lashon remiyyah?

⁴ Sharp khitzim (arrows) of the gibbor, with burning (charcoal) coals of the broom plant.

⁵ Woe is me, that I sojourn in Meshech, that I dwell in the ohalim of Kedar!

⁶ My nefesh hath long dwelt with him that hateth shalom.

⁷ I am for shalom; but when I speak, they are for milchamah (war).

121 (Shir HaMa’alot) I will lift up mine eyes unto the harim (hills), from whence cometh ezri (my help).

² Ezri (my help) cometh from Hashem, Oseh Shomayim v’Aretz.

³ He will not allow thy regel to slip; He that is shomer over thee will not slumber.

⁴ Hinei, He that is shomer over Yisroel shall neither slumber nor sleep.

⁵ Hashem is the One shomer over thee; Hashem is thy shade upon thy right hand.

⁶ The shemesh shall not strike thee by day, nor the yarei’ach by night.

⁷ Hashem shall preserve thee from kol rah; He shall preserve thy nefesh.

⁸ Hashem shall be shomer over thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even v’ad olam.

122 (Shir HaMa’alot, [Song of Ascents] of Dovid). I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the Bais Hashem.

² Our feet shall stand within thy she’arim, O Yerushalayim.

³ Yerushalayim is built as an Ir bound firmly together;

⁴ That is where the Shevatim (tribes) go up, the Shivtei Hashem, according to the edut l’Yisroel (the statute to Yisroel), to give thanks unto the Shem of Hashem.

⁵ For there are set kise’ot l’mishpat (thrones of judgment), the kise’ot of the Bais Dovid.

⁶ Sha’alu shalom Yerushalayim (pray for the peace of Jerusalem); they shall prosper that love thee.

⁷ Shalom be within thy wall, and security within thy citadels.

⁸ L’ma’an (for the sake of) my achim and companions, I will now say, Shalom be within thee.

⁹ L’ma’an the Bais Hashem Eloheinu I will seek thy tov.

9 Do I not have cherut [in Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach]? Am I not a Shliach? Have I not seen Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach Adoneinu? Are you not my po’al (work) in Adoneinu?

² If to others I am not a Shliach, surely I am to you, for you are the chotam (seal) of my shlichus (Ga 2:10), in Hashem.

³ My apologetic to the ones cross-examining me is this:

⁴ Do I not have the privilege of eating and drinking?

⁵ Is the privilege not mine to take an achot b’Moshiach as isha in my travels for Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach’s avodas kodesh, just as the rest of his Shlichim do and the Achim [see p.848] of Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach Adoneinu and Kefa?

⁶ Or is it only Bar-Nabba and I who are denied the privilege of not working at a parnasah?

⁷ Whoever heard of someone serving as a chaiyal (soldier) but having to pay his own wages for doing so? Who plants a kerem (vineyard) but does not eat the p’ri hakerem? And who serves as a ro’eh (shepherd) over a flock and of the cholov (milk) of the flock does not partake? [Devarim 20:6; Mishle 27:18]

⁸ Do I say this according to the dvar haBnei Adam? Or does not the Torah say these things?

⁹ For, in the Torah of Moshe [Rabbenu] it has been written, LO TACHSOM SHOR BEDISHO ("You shall not muzzle an ox treading grain" DEVARIM 25:4). Surely it is not for oxen that Hashem is concerned.

¹⁰ Or does he not speak altogether for our sake, and is it not for us that Hashem says this? Ken, for us, because it was written that the one plowing ought to plow on in tikvah, and the one threshing ought to partake with tikvah.

¹¹ If we sowed spiritual things to you, is it too much if we reap in material things from you? [Ro 15:27]

¹² If others over you can claim this privilege, can we not even more? But we did not make use of this privilege; we endure all things, lest any hindrance we should give to Moshiach’s Besuras HaGeulah.

¹³ Do you not have da’as that the kohanim serving in the Beis Hamikdash sherut (service in the Temple) eat the things of the Beis Hamikdash; the kohanim attending the Mizbe’ach (altar) have their share with the Mizbe’ach (altar)?

¹⁴ So also Moshiach Adoneinu appointed the ones proclaiming the Besuras HaGeulah to get their parnasah from the Besuras HaGeulah.

¹⁵ But I have not used any of these privileges; I did not write these things that it might be so with me; for it’s better for me rather to die than that someone deprive me of my kavod [in Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach Pp 1:21].

¹⁶ For if I preach the Besuras HaGeulah there is nothing for me to boast about, als (since) necessity is laid on me, for Oy Li ("Woe to me!") if I do not preach the Besuras HaGeulah [YIRMEYAH 20:9].

¹⁷ For, if I do this willingly, I have a sachar (reward), but if unwillingly, then a ne’emanut (trusteeship), a kehunah for the Besuras HaGeulah [Ro 15:16] has been entrusted to me.

¹⁸ What then is my sachar (reward)? That in preaching as a maggid of the Besuras HaGeulah, I may make the Besuras HaGeulah free of charge, so as not to make full use of my right in the Besuras HaGeulah.

¹⁹ For being no indentured servant to any one of the Bnei Adam, I made myself a servant [working for nothing] to kol Bnei Adam, that I might win the more.

²⁰ And I became to the Yehudim as a Yehudi, that I might win Yehudim; to the ones under Torah, I became as under Torah—not being myself under [the epoch of] Torah—that the ones under Torah I might win;

²¹ To the ones without Torah, as without Torah, though not being without the Torah of Hashem but being under Moshiach’s Torah [YESHAYAH 42:4], that I might win the ones without Torah.

²² I became weak to the weak ones that I might win the weak ones. I have become all things to kol Bnei Adam, that by all means I might save some.

²³ And all things I do because of the Besuras HaGeulah that a fellow partaker and deveykus sharer in it I may become.

²⁴ Do you not have da’as that the ones running on a race course all indeed run, but it is only one who receives the prize? So run that you may obtain the prize.

²⁵ And everyone competing in the [Olympic] games in all things exercises shlitah atzmi: those ones, therefore, that they may obtain a perishable wreath; but we, an imperishable.

²⁶ Therefore, I run not as one without a goal that is kovua (fixed, set). I box as not beating the air.

²⁷ But I do more than merely spar with my basar; I pommel it and keep it under strict subjection, so that after I am the maggid to others, I myself will not become declared ineligible.