Old/New Testament
By the Rivers of Babylon
Psalm 137
1 By the rivers of Babylon,
we sat down and wept,
when we remembered Zion.
2 On the willows there
we hung up our harps.
3 For there our captors demanded songs
and our tormentors asked for joy:
“Sing us one of the songs of Zion.”
4 How can we sing a song of Adonai in a foreign land?
5 If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
let my right hand wither.
6 May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
if I cease to remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem above my chief joy.
7 Remember, Adonai, the children of Edom,
what they said on the day Jerusalem fell:
“Strip her, strip her to her very foundation!”
8 O daughter of Babylon, the devastated one,
happy is the one who repays you
as you have paid us.
9 Happy is the one who seizes your little ones
and dashes them upon the rock.
Your Right Hand Delivers Me
Psalm 138
1 Of David.
I praise You with all my heart.
In the presence of the mighty I will sing praises to You.
2 I bow down toward Your holy Temple
and praise Your Name for Your love and Your faithfulness.
For You—magnified above all Your Name and Your word.
3 On the day I called, You answered me.
You made me bold with strength in my soul.
4 All the kings of the earth will praise You, Adonai,
when they hear Your mouth’s speech.
5 So they will sing of the ways of Adonai,
for great is the glory of Adonai.
6 For though Adonai is exalted,
yet He looks upon the lowly,
but the haughty He knows from afar.
7 Though I walk amid trouble,
You revive me.
You stretch out Your hand against the wrath of my enemies,
and Your right hand delivers me.
8 Adonai will fulfill His purpose for me.
Your lovingkindness, Adonai, endures forever.
Do not abandon the work of Your hands.
How Precious Your Thoughts!
Psalm 139
1 For the music director: a psalm of David.
Adonai, You searched me and know me.
2 Whenever I sit down or stand up, You know it.
You discern my thinking from afar.
3 You observe my journeying and my resting
and You are familiar with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, Adonai, You know all about it.
5 You hemmed me in behind and before,
and laid Your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from Your Ruach?
Where can I flee from Your presence?
8 If I go up to heaven, You are there,
and if I make my bed in Sheol,
look, You are there too.
9 If I take the wings of the dawn
and settle on the other side of the sea,
10 even there Your hand will lead me,
and Your right hand will lay hold of me.
11 If I say: “Surely darkness covers me,
night keeps light at a distance from me,”
12 even darkness is not dark for You,
and night is as bright as day—
darkness and light are alike.
13 For You have created my conscience.
You knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise You, for I am awesomely, wonderfully made!
Wonderful are Your works—
and my soul knows that very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from You
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw me when I was unformed,
and in Your book were written the days that were formed—
when not one of them had come to be.
17 How precious are Your thoughts, O God!
How great is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand!
When I awake, I am still with You.
19 If only You would slay the wicked, O God!
Away from me, you bloody men!
20 For they speak about You with wicked intent.
Your enemies reproach You in vain.
21 Do I not hate those who hate You, Adonai?
Do I not loathe those who rise against You?
22 I hate them with total hatred—
I consider them my enemies.
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart.
Examine me, and know my anxious thoughts,
24 and see if there be any offensive way within me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
The Superior Way of Love
13 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels
but have not love,
I have become a noisy gong
or a clanging cymbal.
2 If I have the gift of prophecy
and know all mysteries and all knowledge,
and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains
but have not love,
I am nothing.
3 If I give away all that I own
and if I hand over my body so I might boast[a]
but have not love,
I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient,
love is kind,
it does not envy,
it does not brag,
it is not puffed up,
5 it does not behave inappropriately,
it does not seek its own way,
it is not provoked,
it keeps no account of wrong,
6 it does not rejoice over injustice
but rejoices in the truth;
7 it bears all things,
it believes all things,
it hopes all things,
it endures all things.
8 Love never fails—
but where there are prophecies,
they will pass away;
where there are tongues,
they will cease;
where there is knowledge,
it will pass away.
9 For we know in part
and we prophesy in part;
10 but when that which is perfect has come,
then that which is partial will pass away.
11 When I was a child,
I spoke like a child,
I thought like a child,
I reasoned like a child.
When I became a man,
I put away childish things.
12 For now we see in a mirror dimly,
but then face to face.
Now I know in part,
but then I will know fully,
even as I have been fully known.
13 But now these three remain—
faith, hope, and love.
And the greatest of these is love.
Tree of Life (TLV) Translation of the Bible. Copyright © 2015 by The Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society.