Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

⁸ [Chet] Channun (gracious) is Hashem, and full of compassion; erech apayim (slow to anger), and of great chesed.

⁹ [Tet] Tov is Hashem to all; and His rachamim is over all His ma’asim.

¹⁰ [Yod] All Thy ma’asim shall praise Thee, Hashem; and Thy chasidim shall bless Thee.

¹¹ [Khaf] They shall speak of the kavod of Thy Malchus, and tell of Thy gevurah;

¹² [Lamed] To make known to the Bnei HaAdam His gevurah, and the kavod hadar of His Malchus.

¹³ [Mem] Thy Malchus is a Malchus kol olamim, and Thy Memshelet for kol dor vador.

¹⁴ [Samekh] Hashem upholdeth all that fall, and raiseth up all those that are bowed down.

1 In the chodesh hashmini (eighth month), in the shnat shtayim (second year) of Daryavesh, came the Devar Hashem unto Zecharyah ben Berechyah ben Iddo HaNavi, saying,

² Hashem hath been very angry with your avot.

³ Therefore, say thou unto them, Thus saith Hashem Tzva’os: Return ye unto Me, saith Hashem Tzva’os, and I will return to you, saith Hashem Tzva’os.

⁴ Do not be like your avot, unto whom the nevi’im harishonim preached, saying, Thus saith Hashem Tzva’os: Turn ye now from your evil ways, and from your evil doings; but they did not hear, nor listen to Me, saith Hashem.

⁵ Your avot, where are they? And the nevi’im, do they live hal’olam (forever)?

⁶ But My devarim and My chukkim, which I commanded My avadim hanevi’im, did they not overtake your avot? And they made teshuvah and said, Just as Hashem Tzva’os determined to do unto us, according to our ways, and according to our doings, so hath He dealt with us.

7 Do you not have da’as, Achim b’Moshiach, for I speak to those who know the Torah, that the Torah exercises marut (authority, rule) over a man so long as he lives?

² For the agunah (woman whose husband’s whereabouts are unknown) is bound by the Torah to her husband while he lives; but in the case that her husband’s death can be confirmed, she is no longer an agunah and is released from the Torah of her husband.

³ Accordingly she will be named no’eh-fet (adulteress) if, while her husband lives, she becomes another man’s. But if her ba’al (husband) dies, she is free from the Torah, so that she is no no’ehfet (adulteress) if she becomes another man’s.

⁴ So then, Achim b’Moshiach, you also were put to death in relation to the Torah through the basar of Moshiach (TEHILLIM 16:9-10 ), in order that you might become another’s, bound to Moshiach who was given Techiyah (Resurrection) from the Mesim, so that we might bear p’ri for Hashem.

⁵ For when we were in the basar (in the fallen condition of the old humanity), through the Torah, the ta’avat besarim, the sinful passions (i.e., Chet Kadmon’s yetzer harah of the fallen human condition) were working in our natural capacities, so as to bear p’ri for mavet (death) [cf. Ro 4:15].

⁶ But now we have become niftar (freed, deceased) from the dominating ownership of the Torah, having died to that by which we were confined, so that we might serve in the Ruach Hakodesh of hitkhadshut and newness and not in the yoshen (oldness) of chumra (legalism, strict adherence to the letter of the law) (Ro 2:29).