Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
92 (0) A psalm. A song for Shabbat:
2 (1) It is good to give thanks to Adonai
and sing praises to your name, ‘Elyon,
3 (2) to tell in the morning about your grace
and at night about your faithfulness,
4 (3) to the music of a ten-stringed [harp] and a lute,
with the melody sounding on a lyre.
5 (4) For, Adonai, what you do makes me happy;
I take joy in what your hands have made.
6 (5) How great are your deeds, Adonai!
How very deep your thoughts!
7 (6) Stupid people can’t know,
fools don’t understand,
8 (7) that when the wicked sprout like grass,
and all who do evil prosper,
it is so that they can be eternally destroyed,
9 (8) while you, Adonai, are exalted forever.
10 (9) For your enemies, Adonai,
your enemies will perish;
all evildoers will be scattered.
11 (10) But you have given me
the strength of a wild bull;
you anoint me with fresh olive oil.
12 (11) My eyes have gazed with pleasure on my enemies’ ruin,
my ears have delighted in the fall of my foes.
13 (12) The righteous will flourish like a palm tree,
they will grow like a cedar in the L’vanon.
14 (13) Planted in the house of Adonai,
they will flourish in the courtyards of our God.
15 (14) Even in old age they will be vigorous,
still full of sap, still bearing fruit,
16 (15) proclaiming that Adonai is upright,
my Rock, in whom there is no wrong.
Parashah 33: B’chukkotai (By my regulations) 26:3–27:34
[In regular years read with Parashah 32, in leap years read separately]
3 “‘If you live by my regulations, observe my mitzvot and obey them; 4 then I will provide the rain you need in its season, the land will yield its produce, and the trees in the field will yield their fruit. 5 Your threshing time will extend until the grape harvest, and your grape harvesting will extend until the time for sowing seed. You will eat as much food as you want and live securely in your land.
(LY: ii) 6 “‘I will give shalom in the land — you will lie down to sleep unafraid of anyone. I will rid the land of wild animals. The sword will not go through your land. 7 You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall before your sword. 8 Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand — your enemies will fall before your sword.
9 “‘I will turn toward you, make you productive, increase your numbers and uphold my covenant with you. (RY: v, LY: iii) 10 You will eat all you want from last year’s harvest and throw out what remains of the old to make room for the new. 11 I will put my tabernacle among you, and I will not reject you, 12 but I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people. 13 I am Adonai your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, so that you would not be their slaves. I have broken the bars of your yoke, so that you can walk upright.
14 “‘But if you will not listen to me and obey all these mitzvot, 15 if you loathe my regulations and reject my rulings, in order not to obey all my mitzvot but cancel my covenant; 16 then I, for my part, will do this to you: I will bring terror upon you — wasting disease and chronic fever to dim your sight and sap your strength. You will sow your seed for nothing, because your enemies will eat the crops. 17 I will set my face against you — your enemies will defeat you, those who hate you will hound you, and you will flee when no one is pursuing you.
18 If these things don’t make you listen to me, then I will discipline you seven times over for your sins. 19 I will break the pride you have in your own power. I will make your sky like iron, your soil like bronze — 20 you will spend your strength in vain, because the land will not yield its produce or the trees in the field their fruit.
4 Therefore, brothers, just as you learned from us how you had to live in order to please God, and just as you are living this way now, we ask you — indeed, united with the Lord Yeshua, we urge you — to keep doing so more and more. 2 For you know what instructions we gave you on the authority of the Lord Yeshua. 3 What God wants is that you be holy, that you keep away from sexual immorality, 4 that each of you know how to manage his sexual impulses in a holy and honorable manner, 5 without giving in to lustful desires, like the pagans who don’t know God. 6 No one should wrong his brother in this matter or take advantage of him, because the Lord punishes all who do such things — as we have explained to you before at length. 7 For God did not call us to live an unclean life but a holy one. 8 Therefore, whoever rejects this teaching is rejecting not a man but God, indeed, the One who gives you the Ruach HaKodesh, which is his.
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.