Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Justice of the Kingdom
Psalm 146
1 Halleluyah! Praise Adonai, O my soul!
2 I will praise Adonai all my life.
I will praise my God yet again.
3 Do not put your trust in princes—
in man, in whom there is no salvation.
4 His breath departs,
he returns to his dust.
In that very day his plans perish.
5 Happy is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in Adonai his God,
6 who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them,
who keeps truth forever,
7 who executes justice for the oppressed,
who gives bread to the hungry.
Adonai sets the prisoners free.
8 Adonai opens the eyes of the blind.[a]
Adonai raises up those who are bowed down.
Adonai loves the righteous.
9 Adonai protects outsiders,
upholds the fatherless and the widow,
but thwarts the way of the wicked.
10 Adonai will reign forever,
your God, O Zion, from generation to generation.
Halleluyah!
Shmittah: Cancellation of Debts
15 “At the end of every seven years you are to cancel debts. 2 This is how you are to cancel debts: every creditor is to release what he has loaned to his neighbor. He must not force his neighbor or his brother to repay, for Adonai’s debt cancellation has been proclaimed. 3 A foreigner you may force, but your hand is to release whatever your brother owes you.
4 “However, there should be no poor among you, for Adonai will surely bless you in the land Adonai your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess. 5 If only you would carefully listen to the voice of Adonai your God, being careful to do all these mitzvah that I am commanding you today! 6 For Adonai your God will bless you as He promised you. So you will lend to many nations, but not borrow; you will rule over many nations, but they will not rule over you.
7 “If there is a poor man among you—any of your brothers within any of your gates in your land that Adonai your God is giving you—you are not to harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother. [a] 8 Rather, you must surely open your hand to him and you must surely lend him enough for his need—whatever he is lacking. 9 Watch yourself, so there is no unworthy thing in your heart saying, ‘The seventh year, the year of cancelling debts, is near,’ and your eye is evil against your poor brother and you give him nothing. Then he may call out to Adonai against you, and it will be a sin upon you. 10 You must surely give to him, and your heart is not to be grieved when you give to him—for because of this thing Adonai your God will bless you in all your work and in every undertaking of your hand.
11 “For there will never cease to be poor people in the land. Therefore I am commanding you, saying, ‘You must surely open your hand to your brother—to your needy and poor in your land.’
15 For this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant,[a] in order that those called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—since a death has taken place that redeems them from violations under the first covenant. 16 For where there is a covenant, the death of the one who made it must be established. [b] 17 For a covenant is secured upon the basis of dead bodies, since it has no strength as long as the one who made it lives. 18 That is why not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. 19 For when every commandment had been spoken by Moses to all the people according to the Torah, he took the blood of the calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and he sprinkled both the book itself and all the people. 20 He said, “This is the blood of the covenant which God commanded you.” [c] 21 And in the same way, he sprinkled the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry with the blood. [d] 22 And nearly everything is purified in blood according to the Torah, and apart from the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.[e]
23 Therefore it was necessary for the replicas of these heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices—but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. 24 For Messiah did not enter into Holies made with hands—counterparts of the true things—but into heaven itself, now to appear in God’s presence on our behalf.
Tree of Life (TLV) Translation of the Bible. Copyright © 2015 by The Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society.