Book of Common Prayer
Today, Hear His Voice
Psalm 95
1 O come, let us sing for joy to Adonai.
Let us shout for joy to the rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving.
Let us shout joyfully to Him with songs.
3 For Adonai is a great God
and a great King above all gods.
4 In His hand are the depths of the earth,
the mountain peaks are His also.
5 The sea is His—He made it,
and His hands formed the dry land.
6 Come, let us worship and bow down.
Let us kneel before Adonai our Maker.[a]
7 For He is our God,
and we are the people of His pasture,
the flock of His hand.
Today, if you hear His voice:
8 “Do not harden your heart as at Meribah,
as in the day of Massah in the wilderness,
9 when your fathers tested Me,
they challenged Me, even though they had seen My work.
10 For forty years I loathed that generation.
So I said: ‘It is a people whose heart goes astray,
who do not know My ways.’
11 Therefore I swore in My anger,
‘They shall never enter into My rest.’”
Suffering Servant
Psalm 22
1 For the music director, on “The Doe of the Dawn,” a psalm of David.
2 My God, my God,
why have You forsaken me?
Distant from my salvation
are the words of my groaning.[a]
3 O my God, I cried out by day, but You did not answer,
by night, but there was no rest for me.
4 Yet You are holy,
enthroned on the praises of Israel.
5 In You our fathers put their trust.
They trusted, and You delivered them.
6 They cried to you and were delivered.
In You they trusted, and were not disappointed.
7 Am I a worm, and not a man?
Am I a scorn of men, despised by people?
8 All who see me mock me.
They curl their lips, shaking their heads:
9 “Rely on Adonai! Let Him deliver him!
Let Him rescue him—since he delights in Him!”[b]
10 Yet You brought me out of the womb,
made me secure at my mother’s breasts.
11 From the womb I was cast on You—
from my mother’s womb You have been my God.
12 Be not far from me!
For trouble is near—
there is no one to help.
13 Many bulls have surrounded me.
Strong bulls of Bashan encircled me.
14 They open wide their mouths against me,
like a tearing, roaring lion.
15 I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are disjointed.
My heart is like wax—
melting within my innards.
16 My strength is dried up like a clay pot,
my tongue clings to my jaws.
You lay me in the dust of death.
17 For dogs have surrounded me.
A band of evildoers has closed in on me.
They pierced[c] my hands and my feet.
18 I can count all my bones.
They stare, they gape at me.
19 They divide my clothes among them,
and cast lots for my garment.[d]
20 But You, Adonai, be not far off!
O my strength! Come quickly to my aid!
21 Deliver my soul from the sword—
my only one from the power of the dog.
22 Save me from the lion’s mouth.
From the horns of the wild oxen rescue me.
23 I will declare Your Name to my brothers.
I will praise You amid the congregation.[e]
24 You who fear Adonai, praise Him!
All Jacob’s descendants, glorify Him!
Revere Him, all you seed of Israel.
25 For He has not despised or disdained the suffering of the lowly one.
Nor has He hidden His face from him,
but when he cried to Him, He heard.
26 From You is my praise in the great assembly.
I will fulfill my vows before those who fear Him.
27 Let the poor eat and be satisfied.
Let them who seek after Him praise Adonai.
May your hearts live forever!
28 All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to Adonai.
All the families of the nations will bow down before You.
29 For the kingdom belongs to Adonai,
and He rules over the nations.
30 All the rich of the earth will feast and worship.
Everyone who goes down to the dust will kneel before Him—
even the one who could not keep his own soul alive.
31 His posterity will serve him, telling
the next generation about my Lord.
32 They will come and declare His righteousness
to a people yet to be born—
because He has done it!
Written About Me in the Scroll
Psalm 40
1 For the music director, a psalm of David.
2 I waited patiently for Adonai.
He bent down to me and heard my cry.
3 He brought me up out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire.
Then He set my feet on a rock.
He made my steps firm.
4 He put a new song in my mouth—
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear,
and trust in Adonai.
5 Blessed is the one
who put his confidence in Adonai,
who has not turned to the arrogant,
nor to those who fall into falsehood.
6 Many things You have done, Adonai my God
—Your plans for us are wonderful—
there is none to be compared to You!
If I were to speak and tell of them,
they would be too many to count!
7 Sacrifice and offering You did not desire
—my ears You have opened—
burnt offering and sin offering You did not require.
8 Then I said: “Here I am, I have come—
in the scroll of a book it is written about me.
9 I delight to do Your will, O my God.
Yes, Your Torah is within my being.”
10 I proclaim good news of righteousness in the great assembly.
Behold, I am not shutting my lips—
Adonai, You know!
11 I did not hide Your righteousness within my heart.
Rather I declared Your faithfulness and Your salvation.
I did not conceal Your lovingkindness
and Your truth from the great assembly.
12 Adonai, do not withhold Your compassions from me.
Let Your mercy and Your truth always protect me.
13 For evils beyond number surround me,
my sins have overtaken me
—I cannot see—
they are more than the hairs of my head
—and my heart fails me.
14 Adonai, please deliver me!
Adonai, come quickly to help me!
15 Let those who seek my life to sweep it away
be put to shame and humiliated.
Let those who wish me evil
be turned back in disgrace.
16 Let those who say to me, “Aha! Aha!”
be appalled over their own shame.
17 Let all those who seek You rejoice and be glad in You.
Let those who love Your salvation
continually say: “Adonai be magnified!”
18 But I—I am poor and needy—
yet my Lord is mindful of me.
You are my help and my deliverer—
O my God, do not delay!
The Binding of Isaac
22 Now it was after these things that God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham.”[a]
“Hineni,” he said.
2 Then He said, “Take your son, your only son whom you love[b]—Isaac—and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains about which I will tell you.”
3 So Abraham got up early in the morning, saddled his donkey and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son. He split wood for the burnt offering, and got up and went to the place about which God had told him. 4 On the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from a distance. 5 Abraham said to his young men, “Sit yourselves down here with the donkey. As for me and the young man, we’ll go over there, worship and return to you.”
6 Then Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and put it on Isaac his son. In his hand he took the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together.
7 Then Isaac said to Abraham his father, “My father?”
Then he said, “Here I am, my son.”
He said, “Look. Here’s the fire and the wood. But where’s the lamb for a burnt offering?”
8 Abraham said, “God will provide for Himself a lamb for a burnt offering, my son.”
The two of them walked on together. 9 Then they came to the place about which God had told him, and Abraham built the altar there, laid out the wood, bound up Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. [c] 10 Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son.
11 But the angel of Adonai called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham! Abraham!”
He said, “Hineni!”
12 Then He said, “Do not reach out your hand against the young man—do nothing to him at all. For now I know that you are one who fears God—you did not withhold your son, your only son, from Me.”
13 Then Abraham lifted up his eyes and behold, there was a ram, just caught in the thick bushes by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 Abraham named that place, Adonai Yireh,—as it is said today, “On the mountain, Adonai will provide.”
10 The prophets, who spoke about the grace that was to be yours, searched for this salvation and investigated carefully. 11 They were trying to find out the time and circumstances the Ruach of Messiah within them was indicating, when predicting the sufferings in store for Messiah[a] and the glories to follow. 12 It was revealed to them that they were providing these messages not to themselves but to you. These messages have now been announced to you through those who proclaimed the Good News to you by the Ruach ha-Kodesh, sent from heaven. Even angels long to catch a glimpse of these things.
A Call to Be Holy
13 So brace your minds for action. Keep your balance. And set your hope completely on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Yeshua the Messiah. 14 Like obedient children, do not be shaped by the cravings you had formerly in your ignorance. 15 Instead, just like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in everything you do. 16 For it is written,
“Kedoshim you shall be, for I am kadosh.”[b]
17 If you call on Him as Father—the One who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds—then live out the time of sojourning in reverent fear.
18 You know that you were redeemed from the futile way of life handed down from your ancestors—not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with precious blood like that of a lamb without defect or spot, the blood of Messiah. 20 He was chosen before the foundation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.
36 “Master, where are You going?” Simon Peter said to Him.
Yeshua answered, “Where I am going, you cannot follow Me now; but you will follow Me later.”
37 Peter said to Him, “Master, why can’t I follow You now? I’ll lay down my life for You!”
38 Yeshua answers, “Will you lay down your life for Me? Amen, amen I tell you, before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times!”
Buried in a Rich Man’s Tomb
38 After these things, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate if he could take Yeshua’s body away. Joseph was a disciple of Yeshua, but secretly for fear of the Judean leaders. Pilate gave permission, so Joseph came and took the body away. 39 Nicodemus, who had first visited Yeshua at night, also came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds. [a] 40 Then they took the body of Yeshua and wrapped it in linen with the spices, as is the Jewish burial custom.
41 Now in the place where He was executed, there was a garden. In the garden was a new tomb[b] where no one had yet been buried. 42 Because it was the Jewish Day of Preparation and the tomb was nearby, they laid Yeshua there.
Tree of Life (TLV) Translation of the Bible. Copyright © 2015 by The Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society.