Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
11 Teach me Your way, Adonai,
that I may walk in Your truth.
Give me an undivided heart to fear Your Name.
12 I praise You, O Lord my God, with my whole heart,
and glorify Your Name forever.
13 For great is Your lovingkindness toward me.
You have delivered my soul from the lowest part of Sheol.
14 God, the proud have risen up against me
and a gang of ruthless people have sought my life,
and have not set You before them.
15 But You, my Lord,
are a compassionate and gracious God,
slow to anger, full of love and truth.
16 Turn to me and be gracious to me.
Give Your strength to Your servant,
and save the son of Your maidservant.
17 Make me a sign for good,
so that those who hate me may see it and be ashamed.
For You, Adonai, have helped me and comforted me.
Folly of Idols
9 Those who fashion idols are empty.
Their precious things do not profit.
Their witnesses do not see or know,
so they will be put to shame.
10 Who fashions a god or casts an idol
for no profit?
11 Behold, all his friends will be ashamed,
for the craftsmen are only human.
Let them all assemble.
Let them stand up.
Let them dread.
Let them be put to shame together.
12 The blacksmith takes a tool
and works with it over the coals,
fashioning it with hammers
and working it with his strong arm.
Yet when he is hungry, his strength fails.
When he drinks no water, he gets tired.
13 A carpenter stretches out a line;
he marks it with a pencil;
he shapes it with planes;
he marks it with a compass;
he shapes it like the figure of a man
—like the beauty of a man—
so that it may sit in a shrine.
14 He chops down cedars for himself,
or he takes a cypress or an oak.
He lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest.
He plants a pine and rain nourishes it.
15 Then it is something for a man to burn.
so he takes one of them and warms himself.
He also makes a fire to bake bread.
He also makes a god and worships it.
He makes an idol and bows before it.
16 He burns half of it in the fire.
With this half, he eats meat.
He roasts a roast and is satisfied.
He also warms himself and says,
“Ah! I am warm, I have seen the fire.”
17 Yet with the rest he makes a god, his carved image.
He falls down before it and worships.
He even prays to it and says,
“Deliver me, for you are my god!”
The Promise and the Oath
13 Now when God made His promise to Abraham—since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, 14 saying, “Surely I will bless you, and surely I will multiply you.” [a] 15 And so after waiting patiently, Abraham reached the promise. [b] 16 For people swear by someone greater; and the oath, as confirmation, is an end to all their disputing. 17 In the same way God, determining to point out more clearly to the heirs of the promise the unchanging nature of His purpose, guaranteed it with an oath. 18 So by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie,[c] we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us. 19 We have this hope as an anchor of the soul, both firm and steady—a hope that enters the inner place behind the curtain. [d] 20 Yeshua has entered there as a forerunner on our behalf, having become Kohen Gadol “forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.”[e]
Tree of Life (TLV) Translation of the Bible. Copyright © 2015 by The Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society.