Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
146 Halleluyah!
Praise Adonai, my soul!
2 I will praise Adonai as long as I live.
I will sing praise to my God all my life.
3 Don’t put your trust in princes
or in mortals, who cannot help.
4 When they breathe their last, they return to dust;
on that very day all their plans are gone.
5 Happy is he whose help is Ya‘akov’s God,
whose hope is in Adonai his God.
6 He made heaven and earth,
the sea and everything in them;
he keeps faith forever.
7 He secures justice for the oppressed,
he gives food to the hungry.
Adonai sets prisoners free,
8 Adonai opens the eyes of the blind,
Adonai lifts up those who are bent over.
Adonai loves the righteous.
9 Adonai watches over strangers,
he sustains the fatherless and widows;
but the way of the wicked he twists.
10 Adonai will reign forever,
your God, Tziyon, through all generations.
Halleluyah!
18 When Na‘omi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more to her.
19 So the two of them went on until they came to Beit-Lechem. When they arrived in Beit-Lechem, the whole city was stirred with excitement over them. The women asked, “Can this be Na‘omi?” 20 “Don’t call me Na‘omi [pleasant],” she answered them; “call me Marah [bitter], because Shaddai has made my life very bitter. 21 I went out full, and Adonai has brought me back empty. Why call me Na‘omi? Adonai has testified against me, Shaddai has afflicted me.” 22 This is how Na‘omi returned, with Rut the woman from Mo’av, her daughter-in-law, accompanying her from the plain of Mo’av. They arrived in Beit-Lechem at the beginning of the barley harvest.
9 Now the first covenant had both regulations for worship and a Holy Place here on earth. 2 A tent was set up, the outer one, which was called the Holy Place; in it were the menorah, the table and the Bread of the Presence. 3 Behind the second parokhet was a tent called the Holiest Place, 4 which had the golden altar for burning incense and the Ark of the Covenant, entirely covered with gold. In the Ark were the gold jar containing the man, Aharon’s rod that sprouted and the stone Tablets of the Covenant; 5 and above it were the k’ruvim representing the Sh’khinah, casting their shadow on the lid of the Ark — but now is not the time to discuss these things in detail.
6 With things so arranged, the cohanim go into the outer tent all the time to discharge their duties; 7 but only the cohen hagadol enters the inner one; and he goes in only once a year, and he must always bring blood, which he offers both for himself and for the sins committed in ignorance by the people. 8 By this arrangement, the Ruach HaKodesh showed that so long as the first Tent had standing, the way into the Holiest Place was still closed. 9 This symbolizes the present age and indicates that the conscience of the person performing the service cannot be brought to the goal by the gifts and sacrifices he offers. 10 For they involve only food and drink and various ceremonial washings — regulations concerning the outward life, imposed until the time for God to reshape the whole structure.
11 But when the Messiah appeared as cohen gadol of the good things that are happening already, then, through the greater and more perfect Tent which is not man-made (that is, it is not of this created world), 12 he entered the Holiest Place once and for all.
And he entered not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, thus setting people free forever.
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.