Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
MEM מ
97 O how I love Your Torah!
It is my meditation all day.
98 Your mitzvot make me wiser than my enemies
—for they are mine forever.
99 I have more insight than all my teachers,
for Your testimonies are my meditation.
100 I have gained more understanding than all my elders,
for I have kept Your precepts.
101 I kept my feet from every evil way,
in order to follow Your word.
102 I do not turn away from Your rulings,
for You Yourself have taught me.
103 How sweet is Your word to my taste—
yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth!
104 From Your precepts I get discernment,
therefore I hate every false way.
Levites Tell Israel’s Story
9 Now on the twenty-fourth day of this same month, Bnei-Yisrael gathered together, fasting and wearing sackcloth and putting dust on their heads. 2 The offspring of Israel separated themselves from all foreigners, standing and confessing their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. 3 They stood in their place and read in the scroll of the Torah of Adonai their God for a quarter of the day; and for another quarter they were confessing and prostrating themselves before Adonai their God.
4 Then the Levites—Jeshua, Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Chenani—stood on the platform and cried out with a loud voice to Adonai their God. 5 The Levites—Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah—said: “Stand up! Bless Adonai your God, from everlasting to everlasting! May Your glorious Name be blessed; may it be exalted above all blessing and praise. 6 You alone are Adonai. You made the heavens, even the highest heaven with all its array,[a] the earth and everything on it, the seas and everything in them. You give life to them all, and the multitudes of heaven worship You.
7 “You are Adonai, the God who chose Abram, brought him from Ur of the Chaldeans and gave him the name Abraham. 8 You found his heart faithful before You and made the covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanite, Hittite, Amorite, Perizzite, Jebusite and the Girgashite to his seed. You have fulfilled Your words, for You are righteous.
9 “You saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt and heard their cry by the Sea of Reeds. 10 You gave signs and wonders against Pharaoh, all his servants, and all the people of his land, for You knew how insolently they treated them. You made a name for Yourself which remains to this day. 11 You divided the sea before them, so that they passed through the midst of the sea on dry land! But their pursuers You threw into the depths like a stone into mighty waters. 12 You led them with a pillar of cloud by day and with a pillar of fire by night to illuminate for them the way they were to go.
13 “You descended on Mount Sinai and spoke with them from heaven. You gave them just judgments, reliable laws, and good statutes and mitzvot. 14 You made known to them Your holy Shabbat and ordained for them mitzvot, statutes and Torah by the hand of Your servant Moses. 15 You gave them bread from heaven for their hunger, and brought them water from the rock for their thirst. You told them to go in to possess the land that You had sworn to give them.[b]
Orderly Relationships: Marriage
21 Also submit yourselves to one another out of reverence for Messiah— 22 wives to your own husbands as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is head of the wife, as Messiah also is head of His community—Himself the Savior of the body. 24 But as Messiah’s community is submitted to Messiah, so also the wives to their husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives just as Messiah also loved His community and gave Himself up for her 26 to make her holy, having cleansed her by immersion[a] in the word. 27 Messiah did this so that He might present to Himself His glorious community—not having stain or wrinkle or any such thing, but in order that she might be holy and blameless. 28 In the same way, husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it—just as Messiah also does His community, 30 because we are members of His body. 31 “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” [b] 32 This mystery is great—but I am talking about Messiah and His community. 33 In any case, let each of you love his own wife as himself, and let the wife respect her husband.
Orderly Relationships: Parents
6 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. [c] 2 “Honor your father and mother” (which is the first commandment with a promise), 3 “so that it may be well with you, and you may live long on the earth.” [d] 4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.[e]
Orderly Relationships: Workplace
5 Slaves, obey your human masters, with respect and reverence, with sincerity of heart, as you would the Messiah— 6 not just under your master’s eye as people-pleasers, but as slaves of Messiah doing God’s will from the soul. 7 Serve with a positive attitude, as to the Lord and not to men— 8 knowing that whatever good each one does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether slave or free. 9 And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Stop using threats, knowing that the Master—of them and of you, too—is in heaven,[f] and there is no favoritism with Him.
Tree of Life (TLV) Translation of the Bible. Copyright © 2015 by The Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society.