Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
ז (Zayin)
49 Remember your promise to your servant,
through which you have given me hope.
50 In my distress my comfort is this:
that your promise gives me life.
51 Though the arrogant scorn me completely,
I have not turned away from your Torah.
52 Adonai, I keep in mind your age-old rulings;
in them I take comfort.
53 Fury seizes me when I think of the wicked,
because they abandon your Torah.
54 Your laws have become my songs
wherever I make my home.
55 I remember your name, Adonai, at night;
and I observe your Torah.
56 This [comfort] has come to me,
because I observe your precepts.
5 (A: iv, S: iii) Then Moshe called to all Isra’el and said to them, “Listen, Isra’el, to the laws and rulings which I am announcing in your hearing today, so that you will learn them and take care to obey them. 2 Adonai our God made a covenant with us at Horev. 3 Adonai did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us — with us, who are all of us here alive today. 4 Adonai spoke with you face to face from the fire on the mountain. 5 At that time I stood between Adonai and you in order to tell you what Adonai was saying; because, on account of the fire, you were afraid and wouldn’t go up onto the mountain. He said,
א 6 “‘I am Adonai your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, where you lived as slaves.
ב 7 “‘You are to have no other gods before me. 8 You are not to make for yourselves a carved image or any kind of representation of anything in heaven above, on the earth beneath or in the water below the shoreline — 9 you are not to bow down to them or serve them; for I, Adonai your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sins of the parents, also the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 10 but displaying grace to the thousandth generation of those who love me and obey my mitzvot.
ג 11 “‘You are not to misuse the name of Adonai your God, because Adonai will not leave unpunished someone who misuses his name.
ד 12 “‘Observe the day of Shabbat, to set it apart as holy, as Adonai your God ordered you to do. 13 You have six days to labor and do all your work, 14 but the seventh day is a Shabbat for Adonai your God. On it you are not to do any kind of work — not you, your son or your daughter, not your male or female slave, not your ox, your donkey or any of your other livestock, and not the foreigner staying with you inside the gates to your property — so that your male and female servants can rest just as you do. 15 You are to remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and Adonai your God brought you out from there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore Adonai your God has ordered you to keep the day of Shabbat.
ה 16 “‘Honor your father and mother, as Adonai your God ordered you to do, so that you will live long and have things go well with you in the land Adonai your God is giving you.
ו 17 “‘Do not murder.
ז (18) “‘Do not commit adultery.
ח (19) “‘Do not steal.
ט (20) “‘Do not give false evidence against your neighbor.
י 18 (21) “‘Do not covet your neighbor’s wife; do not covet your neighbor’s house, his field, his male or female slave, his ox, his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.’
(A: v, S: iv) 19 (22) “These words Adonai spoke to your entire gathering at the mountain from fire, cloud and thick mist, in a loud voice; then it ceased. But he wrote them on two stone tablets, which he gave to me. 20 (23) When you heard the voice coming out of the darkness, as the mountain blazed with fire, you came to me, all the heads of your tribes and your leaders, 21 (24) and said, ‘Here, Adonai our God has shown us his glory and his greatness! We have heard his voice coming from the fire, and we have seen today that God does speak with human beings, and they stay alive.
4 As you come to him, the living stone, rejected by people but chosen by God and precious to him, 5 you yourselves, as living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be cohanim set apart for God to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to him through Yeshua the Messiah. 6 This is why the Tanakh says,
“Look! I am laying in Tziyon a stone,
a chosen and precious cornerstone;
and whoever rests his trust on it
will certainly not be humiliated.”[a]
7 Now to you who keep trusting, he is precious. But to those who are not trusting,
“The very stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone”;[b]
8 also he is
a stone that will make people stumble,
a rock over which they will trip.[c]
They are stumbling at the Word, disobeying it — as had been planned. 9 But you are a chosen people,[d] the King’s cohanim,[e] a holy nation,[f] a people for God to possess![g] Why? In order for you to declare the praises of the One who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; before, you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.[h]
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.