Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
צ (Tzadeh)
137 You are righteous, Adonai;
and your rulings are upright.
138 You have commanded your instructions
in righteousness and great faithfulness.
139 My zeal is destroying me,
because my foes have forgotten your words.
140 Your word is refined to complete purity,
and your servant loves it.
141 I may be small and despised,
but I do not forget your precepts.
142 Your righteousness is eternal righteousness,
and your Torah is truth.
143 Trouble and distress have overtaken me,
but your mitzvot are my delight.
144 Your instruction is righteous forever;
give me understanding, and I will live.
5 “Look around among the nations!
What you see will completely astound you!
For what is going to be done in your days
you will not believe, even when you are told.
6 I am raising up the Kasdim,
that bitter and impetuous nation,
who march far and wide over the earth
to seize homes that are not their own.
7 Fearsome and dreadful they are;
their rules and strength come from themselves.
8 Their horses are swifter than leopards,
fiercer than wolves at night.
Their cavalry gallop in from afar,
flying like vultures rushing to feed.
9 All of them come for violence,
their faces set eagerly forward,
scooping up captives like sand.
10 They scoff at kings;
princes they deride.
They laugh at any fortress;
they pile up earth and take it.
11 Then they sweep on like the wind,
but they become guilty,
because they make their strength their god.”
12 Adonai, haven’t you existed forever?
My God, my holy one, we will not die.
Adonai, you appointed them to execute judgment.
Rock, you commissioned them to correct us.
13 Your eyes are too pure to see evil,
you cannot countenance oppression.
So why do you countenance traitors?
Why are you silent when evil people
swallow up those more righteous than they?
14 You make people like fish in the sea,
like reptiles that have no ruler.
15 The evil haul them all up with their hooks,
catch them in their fish net,
or gather them in their dragnet.
Then they rejoice and make merry,
16 offering sacrifices to their fishnet
and burning incense to their dragnet;
because through them they live in luxury,
with plenty of food to eat.
17 Should they, therefore, keep emptying their nets?
Should they keep slaughtering the nations without pity?
1 From: Shim‘on Kefa, a slave and emissary of Yeshua the Messiah
To: Those who, through the righteousness of our God and of our Deliverer Yeshua the Messiah, have been given the same kind of trust as ours:
2 May grace and shalom be yours in full measure, as you come to a full knowledge of God and Yeshua our Lord.
3 God’s power has given us everything we need for life and godliness, through our knowing the One who called us to his own glory and goodness. 4 By these he has given us valuable and superlatively great promises, so that through them you might come to share in God’s nature and escape the corruption which evil desires have brought into the world.
5 For this very reason, try your hardest to furnish your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge, 6 knowledge with self-control, self-control with perseverance, perseverance with godliness, 7 godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. 8 For if you have these qualities in abundance, they keep you from being barren and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah. 9 Indeed, whoever lacks them is blind, so shortsighted that he forgets that his past sins have been washed away. 10 Therefore, brothers, try even harder to make your being called and chosen a certainty. For if you keep doing this, you will never stumble. 11 Thus you will be generously supplied with everything you need to enter the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Deliverer, Yeshua the Messiah.
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.