Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
78 (0) A maskil of Asaf:
(1) Listen, my people, to my teaching;
turn your ears to the words from my mouth.
2 I will speak to you in parables
and explain mysteries from days of old.
3 The things which we have heard and known,
and which our fathers told us
4 we will not hide from their descendants;
we will tell the generation to come
the praises of Adonai and his strength,
the wonders that he has performed.
5 He raised up a testimony in Ya‘akov
and established a Torah in Isra’el.
He commanded our ancestors
to make this known to their children,
6 so that the next generation would know it,
the children not yet born,
who would themselves arise
and tell their own children,
7 who could then put their confidence in God,
not forgetting God’s deeds,
but obeying his mitzvot.
20 Adonai said to Y’hoshua, 2 “Tell the people of Isra’el, ‘Select the cities of refuge about which I spoke to you through Moshe; 3 so that anyone who kills someone by mistake and unknowingly may escape there; they will serve as refuges for you from the next-of-kin avenger. 4 He is to flee to one of those cities, stand at the entrance to the city gate and state his cause to the city leaders. Then they will bring him into the city with them and give him a place, so that he may live among them. 5 If the next-of-kin avenger pursues him, they are not to hand over the killer to him; because he struck his fellow community member unknowingly and had not hated him previously. 6 So he will live in that city until he stands trial before the community, until the death of the cohen hagadol who is in office at the time. When that time comes, the killer may return to his own city and his own house, to the city from which he fled.’”
7 So they set apart Kedesh in the Galil, in the hills of Naftali; Sh’khem in the hills of Efrayim; and Kiryat-Arba (that is, Hevron) in the hills of Y’hudah. 8 Beyond the Yarden east of Yericho they selected Betzer in the desert, on the plateau, out of the tribe of Re’uven; Ramot in Gil‘ad out of the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan out of the tribe of M’nasheh.
9 These were the cities selected for all the people of Isra’el and for the foreigner living among them, so that anyone who kills any person by mistake could flee there and not die at the hand of the next-of-kin avenger prior to standing trial before the community.
24 As Yeshua left the Temple and was going away, his talmidim came and called his attention to its buildings. 2 But he answered them, “You see all these? Yes! I tell you, they will be totally destroyed — not a single stone will be left standing!”
3 When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the talmidim came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that you are coming, and that the ‘olam hazeh is ending?”
4 Yeshua replied: “Watch out! Don’t let anyone fool you! 5 For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Messiah!’ and they will lead many astray. 6 You will hear the noise of wars nearby and the news of wars far off; see to it that you don’t become frightened. Such things must happen, but the end is yet to come. 7 For peoples will fight each other, nations will fight each other, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various parts of the world; 8 all this is but the beginning of the ‘birth-pains.’ 9 At that time you will be arrested and handed over to be punished and put to death, and all peoples will hate you because of me. 10 At that time many will be trapped into betraying and hating each other, 11 many false prophets will appear and fool many people; 12 and many people’s love will grow cold because of increased distance from Torah. 13 But whoever holds out till the end will be delivered. 14 And this Good News about the Kingdom will be announced throughout the whole world as a witness to all the Goyim. It is then that the end will come.
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.