Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
By the Rivers of Babylon
Psalm 137
1 By the rivers of Babylon,
we sat down and wept,
when we remembered Zion.
2 On the willows there
we hung up our harps.
3 For there our captors demanded songs
and our tormentors asked for joy:
“Sing us one of the songs of Zion.”
4 How can we sing a song of Adonai in a foreign land?
5 If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
let my right hand wither.
6 May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
if I cease to remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem above my chief joy.
7 Remember, Adonai, the children of Edom,
what they said on the day Jerusalem fell:
“Strip her, strip her to her very foundation!”
8 O daughter of Babylon, the devastated one,
happy is the one who repays you
as you have paid us.
9 Happy is the one who seizes your little ones
and dashes them upon the rock.
Remember Us!
5 Remember, Adonai,
what has come upon us.
Look, and see our disgrace!
2 Our inheritance is turned over to strangers,
our homes to foreigners.
3 We have become orphans, fatherless,
our mothers are like widows.
4 We pay silver for the water we drink;
our wood comes at a price.
5 Our pursuers are at our necks.
We are weary and have no rest.
6 We have held out our hand to Egypt
and Assyria to be satisfied with bread.
7 Our fathers sinned and are no more,
but we bear their punishment.
8 Slaves rule over us.
There is no one to deliver us from their hand.
9 We get our bread at the peril of our lives
because of the sword in the desert.
10 Our skin is hot as an oven
due to fever from famine.
11 The women in Zion have been ravished,
maidens in the towns of Judah.
12 Princes are hung up by their hands;
elders are dishonored.
13 Young men toil at the millstone.
Boys stagger under loads of wood.
14 Elders are gone from the gate,
young men from their music.
15 Joy has ceased in our hearts.
Our dance has turned into mourning.
16 The crown has fallen from our head.
Oy to us, for we have sinned!
17 Because of this our heart is faint,
for these things our eyes are dim,
18 for Mount Zion, which lies desolate,
as jackals prowl over it.
Hashiveinu (Restore Us)
19 You, Adonai, are enthroned forever;
Your throne endures from generation to generation.[a]
20 Why do You always forget us
and forsake us for so long?
21 Bring us back to You, Adonai,
and we will return.
Renew our days as of old—
22 unless You have utterly rejected us
and are exceedingly angry with us.
The Fruit of the Faithful
12 The next day, when they had left Bethany, He became hungry. 13 Seeing from a distance a fig tree in leaf, He went to see if He would find any fruit on it. When He came up to it, He found nothing except leaves, because it wasn’t the season for figs. 14 And He said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again!” And His disciples were listening.
20 As they were passing by in the morning, they saw the fig tree shriveled from the roots. 21 Peter remembered and said to Yeshua, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree You cursed has shriveled up!”
22 And Yeshua answered, saying to them, “Have faith in God! 23 Amen, I tell you, if someone says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but trusts that what he says is happening, so shall it be for him. 24 For this reason I say to you, whatever you pray and ask, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.
Tree of Life (TLV) Translation of the Bible. Copyright © 2015 by The Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society.