Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Even My Close Friend
Psalm 41
1 For the music director: a psalm of David.
2 Blessed is the one who considers the wretched—
Adonai will deliver him in the evil day.
3 Adonai will protect him and keep him alive.
He will be made blessed in the land.
You will not give him over to the desire of his foes.
4 Adonai will strengthen him on his sickbed.
May You restore him completely from his bed.
5 I said: “Adonai, have mercy on me.
Heal my soul, for I have sinned against You.”
6 My enemies speak evil about me:
“When will he die and his name perish?”
7 And if someone of them comes to see me, he speaks falsely.
He stores up evil in his heart,
then he goes out and chatters.
8 All who hate me whisper together about me
They imagine the worst about me:
9 “Something evil was poured into him—
he will not get up again from the place where he lies.”
10 Even my own close friend,
whom I trusted, who ate my bread,
has lifted up his heel against me.[a]
11 But You, Adonai, have mercy on me,
and raise me up, so I may repay them.
12 By this I know that You delight in me:
that my enemy does not shout in triumph over me.
13 You uphold me in my integrity
and set me before Your face forever.
14 Blessed be Adonai, the God of Israel,
from everlasting to everlasting.
Amen and amen!
12 Then Adonai appeared to Solomon at night and said to him: “I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for Myself for a House of sacrifice. 13 If I shut up heaven that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people, 14 when My people, over whom My Name is called, humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their evil ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. 15 Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to the prayer offered in this place. 16 For now I have chosen and consecrated this House so that My Name may be there forever. My eyes and My heart shall be there perpetually.
17 “As for you, if you walk before Me as your father David walked, doing all that I have commanded you, keeping My statutes and My ordinances, 18 then I will establish your royal throne as I covenanted with your father David saying, ‘You shall not lack a man to be ruler in Israel.’ 19 But if you turn away and forsake My decrees and My mitzvot that I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, 20 then I will uproot them from My land which I gave them, and this House which I have consecrated for My Name I will cast out of My sight. I will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples. 21 As for this House, which is so exalted, every one passing by it shall be appalled and say, ‘Why has Adonai done this to this land and to this House?’ 22 And they will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken Adonai, the God of their fathers who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and clung to other gods, worshipping and serving them. Therefore He has brought all this misery upon them’”
2 Loved ones, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, just as it is well with your soul. 3 For I was overjoyed when some brethren came and testified of the truth in you—how you are walking in truth. 4 I have no greater joy than this—to hear that my children are walking in the truth.
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5 Loved ones, you are acting faithfully in whatever you do for the brethren and especially for strangers. [a] 6 They have testified to your love before Messiah’s community. You will do well to send them on their way in a manner worthy of God. 7 For on behalf of the Name they went out, accepting nothing from the pagans. 8 Therefore we ought to support such people, so we might become co-workers in the truth.
Tree of Life (TLV) Translation of the Bible. Copyright © 2015 by The Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society.