Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Send Forth Your Light
Psalm 43
1 Vindicate me, O God,
and champion
my cause against an ungodly nation.
From a deceitful and unjust man, deliver me!
2 For You are my God, my stronghold.
Why have You spurned me?
Why do I go about gloomy because of the oppression of the enemy?
3 Send forth Your light and Your truth—
let them guide me.
Let them bring me to Your holy mountain
and to Your dwelling places.
4 Then I will come to the altar of God,
to the God of my exceeding joy,
and praise You upon the harp
—O God, my God.
5 Why are You downcast, O my soul?
Why are you murmuring within me?
Hope in God, for I will yet praise Him,
the salvation of my countenance.
27 Now there came a man of God to Eli and said to him, “Thus says Adonai: Did I not reveal Myself clearly to the house of your father when they were in Egypt belonging to Pharaoh’s palace? 28 Also did I not choose them from all the tribes of Israel to be My kohanim, to officiate at My altar, to burn incense and to wear an ephod before Me? Did I not give to the house of your father all the fire offerings of Bnei-Yisrael? 29 Why do you kick at My sacrifice and My offering which I have commanded in My dwelling, and honor your sons above Me, by fattening yourselves with the choicest of every offering of Israel My people? 30 Therefore Adonai God of Israel declares, I indeed said that your house and your father’s house should walk before Me forever. But now declares Adonai, far be it from Me! For I will honor those who honor Me, but those who despise Me will be disdained. 31 Behold, the days are coming when I will cut short your strength and the strength of your father’s house, so that no one in your household will reach old age. 32 Moreover, you will behold the distress of My dwelling, despite all that is good that has been done to Israel. So no one in your household will reach old age, forever. 33 Any man of yours that I did not cut off from My altar would make your eyes weep and your soul grieve. So all the increase of your household will die as young men. 34 Now this will be the sign to you that will come on your two sons—Hophni and Phinehas—on the same day both of them will die.
35 “Yet I will raise up for Myself a faithful kohen who will do according to what is in My heart and My mind. Then I will build him an enduring house, and he will walk before My anointed one all the time. 36 Anyone left in your household will come and bow low to him for a piece of silver and a loaf of bread, and will say: ‘Please, assign me to one of the priestly offices so that I may eat a morsel of bread.’”
Jewish People Fall Short Too
17 But if you call yourself Jewish and rely upon the Torah and boast in God 18 and know His will and determine what matters because you are instructed from the Torah— 19 and you are sure that you are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, 20 a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of the immature, having in the Torah the embodiment of knowledge and the truth—
21 you then who teach another, do you not teach yourself?
You who preach not to steal, do you steal?
22 You who say not to commit adultery, do you commit adultery?
You who detest idols, do you rob temples?
23 You who take pride in the Torah,
through your violation of the Torah, do you dishonor God?
24 For as it is written, “the name of God is slandered among the nations because of you.”[a]
25 Circumcision is indeed worthwhile if you keep the Torah; but if you break the Torah, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. [b] 26 Therefore, if the uncircumcised keeps the righteous decrees of the Torah, will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision? [c] 27 Indeed, the one not circumcised physically who fulfills the Torah will judge you[d] who—even with the written code[e] and circumcision—break the Torah. 28 For one is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision something visible in the flesh. 29 Rather, the Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart—in Spirit not in letter. His praise is not from men, but from God.[f]
Tree of Life (TLV) Translation of the Bible. Copyright © 2015 by The Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society.