Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
ב (Bet)
9 How can a young man keep his way pure?
By guarding it according to your word.
10 I seek you with all my heart;
don’t let me stray from your mitzvot.
11 I treasure your word in my heart,
so that I won’t sin against you.
12 Blessed are you, Adonai!
Teach me your laws.
13 I proclaim with my mouth
all the rulings you have spoken.
14 I rejoice in the way of your instruction
more than in any kind of wealth.
15 I will meditate on your precepts
and keep my eyes on your ways.
16 I will find my delight in your regulations.
I will not forget your word.
8 Bring forward the people who are blind but have eyes,
also the deaf who have ears.
9 All the nations are gathered together,
and the peoples are assembled.
Who among them can proclaim this
and reveal what happened in the past?
Let them bring their witnesses to justify themselves,
so that others, on hearing, can say, “That’s true.”
10 “You are my witnesses,” says Adonai,
“and my servant whom I have chosen,
so that you can know and trust me
and understand that I am he —
no god was produced before me,
nor will any be after me.
11 I, yes I, am Adonai;
besides me there is no deliverer.
12 I have declared, saved and proclaimed —
not some alien god among you.
Therefore you are my witnesses,”
says Adonai. “I am God.
13 Since days began, I have been he.
No one can deliver from my hand.
When I act, who can reverse it?”
4 Such is the confidence we have through the Messiah toward God. 5 It is not that we are competent in ourselves to count anything as having come from us; on the contrary, our competence is from God. 6 He has even made us competent to be workers serving a New Covenant, the essence of which is not a written text but the Spirit. For the written text brings death, but the Spirit gives life.
7 Now if that which worked death, by means of a written text engraved on stone tablets, came with glory — such glory that the people of Isra’el could not stand to look at Moshe’s face because of its brightness, even though that brightness was already fading away — 8 won’t the working of the Spirit be accompanied by even greater glory? 9 For if there was glory in what worked to declare people guilty, how much more must the glory abound in what works to declare people innocent! 10 In fact, by comparison with this greater glory, what was made glorious before has no glory now. 11 For if there was glory in what faded away, how much more glory must there be in what lasts.
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.