Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Cry of Desperation
Psalm 88
1 A song, a psalm of the sons of Korah, for the music director, for singing Mahalath, a contemplative song[a] of Heman the Ezrahite.
2 Adonai, God of my salvation,
day and night I cried out before You.
3 Let my prayer come before You.
Turn Your ear to my cry.
4 For my soul is full of troubles,
and my life draws near to Sheol.
5 I am counted with those who go down into the Pit.
I have become as one with no strength—
6 abandoned among the dead,
like the slain that lie in the grave,
whom You remember no more—
cut off from Your hand.
7 You have laid me in the lowest places,
in dark places, in the depths.
8 Your wrath lies heavily on me.
You afflicted me with all Your waves. Selah
9 You have put my companions far from me.
You have made me repulsive to them.
I am shut in and I cannot go out.
10 My eye fails from affliction.
I call upon You every day, Adonai.
I spread out my hands to You.
11 Will You work wonders for the dead?
Or will the departed spirits rise up praising You? Selah
12 Will Your love be declared in the grave?
Or Your faithfulness in the place of ruin?
13 Will Your wonders be known in the darkness?
Your righteousness in the land of oblivion?
14 But I—I cried out to You, Adonai,
and in the morning my prayer meets You.
15 Adonai, why do You spurn me?
Why do You hide Your face from me?
16 From my youth I have been afflicted and close to death.
I suffer Your terrors—I am desperate!
17 Your fury has swept over me.
Your terrors have cut me off.
18 Like water they surge around me all day.
They close in on me together.
19 Friend and loved one You took far from me.
Darkness has become my companion.
19 “If a woman has a discharge, and her discharge from her body is blood, she should be in her niddah seven days. And whoever touches her will be unclean until the evening. 20 Everything that she lies on in her niddah will become unclean. Also everything that she sits on will become unclean. 21 Whoever touches her bed is to wash his clothes and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the evening. 22 Whoever touches anything that she sits on is to wash his clothes and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the evening. 23 If it is on the bed or on anything where she sits, when he touches it, he will be unclean until the evening. 24 If any man lies with her, so that her niddah gets on him, he will be unclean for seven days and every bed where he lies will be unclean.
25 “Now if a woman has a discharge of her blood for many days not during her niddah or if she has a discharge beyond the time of her niddah all the days of the discharge of her uncleanness should be as in the days of her niddah. She is unclean. [a] 26 Every bed where she lies all the days of her discharge will be like her bed during her niddah, and everything she sits on will become unclean like the uncleanness of her niddah. 27 Whoever touches these things will become unclean and is to wash his clothes and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the evening.
28 “But if she is cleansed of her discharge, then she is to count off seven days for herself, and after that she will be clean. 29 On the eighth day she is to take two turtledoves or two young pigeons, and bring them to the kohen, at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. 30 The kohen is to offer the one for a sin offering, and the other for a burnt offering. So the kohen will make atonement for her before Adonai for the uncleanness of her discharge.
31 “So you are to keep Bnei-Yisrael separate from their uncleanness, so they will not die in their uncleanness by defiling My Tabernacle that is in their midst.”
9 Now about this service to the kedoshim, it is indeed unnecessary for me to write to you— 2 for I know your eagerness. I boast about it to the Macedonians, that Achaia has been preparing for a year already; and your zeal has stirred up most of them. 3 But I am sending the brothers in order that our boasting about you may not be in vain in this case, so that you may be prepared, just as I kept saying. 4 Otherwise, if any Macedonians were to come and find you unprepared, we—not to mention you—would be put to shame in this undertaking. 5 So I thought it necessary to urge the brothers to go on to you and arrange ahead of time your generous gift that had been promised beforehand, so that it would be ready as a gift and not as an extortion.
Tree of Life (TLV) Translation of the Bible. Copyright © 2015 by The Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society.