Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
I Am for Shalom
Psalm 120
1 A Song of Ascents.
In my trouble I cried out to Adonai,
and He answered me.
2 Adonai, deliver my soul from lying lips,
from a deceitful tongue.
3 What can be given to you,
and what more can be done to you, O deceitful tongue?—
4 sharp arrows of the mighty,
with burning coals of a broom tree!
5 Woe to me, for I sojourn in Meshech,
for I dwell among the tents of Kedar!
6 My soul has too long dwelt
with those who hate shalom.
7 I am for shalom and thus I speak,
but they are for war!
11 For thus says Adonai to Shallum, son of King Josiah of Judah, who became king in place of his father Josiah: “He who went forth from this place will never return there. 12 Instead, in the place where they led him captive, there will he die—he will see this land no more.”
13 Oy to him who builds his house by unrighteousness,
and his roof-chambers by injustice,
that makes his neighbor work without pay,
never giving him his wages,
14 who says: “I will build myself a big house with spacious rooms
and cut out my windows for it,
and panel it with cedar,
and paint it with vermilion!
15 Did you become king
just to be striving with cedar?
Did your father not eat and drink,
and do justice and righteousness?
Then it went well with him.
16 He pled the case of the poor and weak,
so it went well.
Is not this knowledge of Me?”
It is a declaration of Adonai.
17 “But your eyes and your heart
are only on your unjust gain,
and on shedding innocent blood,
and committing extortion and fraud.”
Dinner with a Pharisee
37 As He spoke, a Pharisee asked Yeshua to eat with him, so He entered and sat down. 38 But the Pharisee was surprised when he saw that Yeshua did not do the ritual handwashing before the meal. 39 But the Lord said to him, “You Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and plate, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. 40 Fools! Didn’t He who created the outside also create the inside? 41 But give as tzedakah those things that are within, and indeed everything is pure to you.
42 “But woe to you Pharisees, for you tithe mint, rue, and every garden herb,[a] yet bypass justice and the love of God. It is necessary to do these things without neglecting the others. 43 Woe to you Pharisees, for you love the best seats in the synagogues and the greetings in the marketplaces. 44 Woe to you, for you are like unmarked tombs, and people walk over them without knowing.”
45 But answering, one of the Torah lawyers says to Him, “Teacher, when You say these things, You insult us too.”
46 Then Yeshua said, “Woe to you Torah lawyers as well, for you weigh the people down with burdens hard to carry, yet you yourselves will not touch the burdens with even a finger.
47 “Woe to you, for you build the tombs of the prophets whom your own fathers killed! 48 So you are witnesses and approve the deeds of your fathers, for indeed they killed them and you are building their tombs.
49 “For this reason also the wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and emissaries, and some of them they will kill and persecute, 50 so that the blood of the prophets shed since the foundation of the world might be required from this generation— 51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the one who perished between the altar and the house of God.[b] Yes, I tell you, it will be required from this generation.’
52 “Woe to you, Torah lawyers, for you have taken away the key of knowledge. You yourselves did not enter, and you stood in the way of those entering.”
Tree of Life (TLV) Translation of the Bible. Copyright © 2015 by The Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society.