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Prayer of Teshuvah
6 Come, let us return to Adonai.
For He has torn, but He will heal us.
He has smitten, but He will bind us up.
2 After two days He will revive us.
On the third day He will raise us up,
and we will live in His presence.[a]
3 So let us know, let us strive to know Adonai.
Like dawn His going forth is certain.
He will come to us like the rain,
like the latter rain watering the earth.
Covenant Loyalty More Than Sacrifice
4 “O Ephraim, what shall I do for you?
O Judah, what will I do for you?
For your loyalty is like a morning cloud
or like dew rising early, vanishing.
5 Therefore I cut them down by the prophets.
I slew them by the words of My mouth.
Now the judgments pronounced against you:
light will go forth.
6 For I delight in loyalty[b] and not sacrifice,
knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
7 But like Adam, they transgressed a covenant.
There they dealt treacherously with Me.
8 Gilead is a city of evildoers,
tracked with bloody footprints.
9 Like marauding bands waiting for a man,
so a company of priests murders
on the way toward Shechem.
For they have committed crime.
10 In the house of Israel
I have seen a horrible thing:
Ephraim’s prostitution is there,
Israel has become unclean.
11 Also, Judah, there is a harvest for you,
when I return My people from captivity.”
Iniquity of Senseless Ephraim
7 “When I would have healed Israel,
the iniquity of Ephraim was uncovered,
even the wickedness of Samaria,
for they practice fraud.
So a thief breaks in;
a marauding band will raid outside.
2 But they never admit in their heart
that I remember all their evil.
Now their deeds are all around them.
They are right before My face.
3 They gladden the king with their evil
and the princes with their lies.
4 All of them are practicing adultery,
as an oven heated by a baker who stops stirring
or kneading dough when it is leavened.
5 On the day of our king,
princes become sick from wine.
His hand drags scorners along.
6 For their hearts are like an oven,
as they wait in ambush.
All night their anger smolders.
In the morning it burns like a blazing fire.
7 All of them are hot like an oven,
and they devour their rulers.
All of their kings have fallen.
None among them calls on Me.
8 Ephraim mixes himself with the peoples.
Ephraim has become a pancake
that never gets turned over.
9 Strangers devoured his strength—
yet he does not know it.
Gray hairs have spread on him—
and he does not know it.
10 Though the Pride of Israel
has answered him to his face,
yet they did not return
to Adonai their God,
nor seek Him about all this.
11 Ephraim is like a senseless silly dove,
they call to Egypt; they go to Assyria.
12 As they are going,
I will spread out My net over them,
I will bring them down like a bird from the sky.
I will chasten them as in the report
that comes to their assembly.
13 Oy to them!
For they strayed from Me.
Devastation to them!
For they rebelled against Me.
Should I redeem them
after they spoke lies about Me?
14 Nor did they not cry to Me in their heart
when they were wailing on their beds.
For the sake of grain and new wine
they slash themselves—
they keep turning away from Me.
15 I trained and strengthened their arms,
yet they kept planning evil against Me.
16 They will turn back—only not upwards.
They are like a treacherous bow.
Their princes will fall by the sword
because of the insolence with their tongues.
This will be for their ridicule in the land of Egypt.
Idols Thrown Down
8 “Put a shofar to your mouth!
Like a vulture he comes
against the house of Adonai.
For they overstepped My covenant
and transgressed My Torah.
2 Will they cry out to Me,
‘My God, we—Israel—knew You’?[c]
3 Israel has rejected goodness—
an adversary will pursue him.
4 They crowned kings, but not by Me.
They appointed princes
I did not approve.
Their silver and gold they made into idols—
just so they would be cut down.
5 Samaria! Your calf is thrown down!
My anger is kindled against them!
How long will they be incapable of innocence?
6 For a craftsman from Israel made it,
so it is no god.
For the calf of Samaria will be splinters.
7 “For they sow wind, and reap a whirlwind.
There is no mature grain—
the sprout yields no meal.
Should it produce anything,
strangers would swallow it up.
8 Israel has been swallowed up!
Now they are among the nations,
like an ornament with no delight in it.
9 For they have gone up to Assyria,
like a wild donkey alone by itself.
Ephraim has hired lovers.
10 Although they hire among the nations,
I will now round them up.
So they will begin to decrease
under the burden of king and princes.
11 “When Ephraim multiplied altars
for making sin offerings,
they became his altars for sinning.
12 Though I were to write out for him
ten thousand things from My Torah,
they are regarded as something strange.
13 Sacrifices are gifts for Me—
should they sacrifice meat and then eat it?
Adonai will not accept them.
Now He will remember their iniquity
and punish their sin—
they will return to Egypt.
14 For Israel has forgotten his Maker and built temples,
while Judah has multiplied fortified cities.
So I will send fire upon its cities
that will consume their citadels.”
Days of Desolation Are Coming
9 Do not rejoice, O Israel,
do not celebrate like the peoples—
for so you have gone whoring away from your God.
You have loved a prostitute’s pay,
on every grain-threshing-floor.
2 Threshing-floor and wine-press will not sustain them,
and new wine will fail her.
3 They will not dwell in Adonai’s land.
Instead Ephraim will return to Egypt,
and eat unclean food in Assyria.
4 They will pour no wine-offerings to Adonai—
they would not be pleasing to Him.
Their sacrifices will be like
the bread of mourners for them.
All that eat it will be defiled,
for their bread is for their appetite,
not coming into the House of Adonai.
5 What will you do for a moed
or for the day of Adonai’s feast?
6 Look, even if they escape the desolation,
Egypt will gather them up;
Memphis will bury them.
And their precious silver treasures?
Weeds will possess them.
Thorns will be in their tents.
7 The days of punishment have come;
the days of retribution have come.
Let Israel know! The prophet is a fool;
the man of the spirit is mad!
For great is your iniquity
and great the hostility.
8 Ephraim is a watchman with my God,
a prophet.
A bird catcher’s trap is on all his paths.
Hostility is in the House of his God.
9 They have deeply corrupted themselves
as in the days of Gibeah.
He will remember their iniquity,
He will punish their sin.
10 “Like grapes in the wilderness
I found Israel.
Like early fruit on a fig tree in its first season
I saw your fathers.
They came to Baal-peor
and devoted themselves to shame.
So they became as detestable
as the thing they loved.
11 Ephraim’s glory flies away like a bird—
no birth, no pregnancy, no conception!
12 For if they should raise their children,
I would make them childless to the last man.
Yes, woe to them
when I depart from them!
13 Ephraim, as I have seen,
is like Tyre, planted in a meadow,
but Ephraim will bring his children out to the slayer.”
14 Give them, Adonai, what will You give?
Give them a miscarrying womb
and dried up breasts.
15 “All their wickedness is at Gilgal,
for there I despised them.
Because of their wicked practices,
I will drive them out of My House.
I will love them no more.
All their princes are rebellious.
16 Ephraim is blighted;
their root is withered;
they bear no fruit.
Even if they bring forth children,
I will slay the cherished ones in their wombs.”
17 My God will cast them off,
since they did not listen to Him.
So they will become wanderers among the nations.
The Joys of Walking Out the Truth
1 The elder.
To Gaius the loved one, whom I love in truth:
2 Loved ones, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, just as it is well with your soul. 3 For I was overjoyed when some brethren came and testified of the truth in you—how you are walking in truth. 4 I have no greater joy than this—to hear that my children are walking in the truth.
Support Faithful Kingdom Truth Tellers
5 Loved ones, you are acting faithfully in whatever you do for the brethren and especially for strangers. [a] 6 They have testified to your love before Messiah’s community. You will do well to send them on their way in a manner worthy of God. 7 For on behalf of the Name they went out, accepting nothing from the pagans. 8 Therefore we ought to support such people, so we might become co-workers in the truth.
The Lust for Power Condemned
9 I wrote something to Messiah’s community, but Diotrephes, who loves to be first among them, doesn’t welcome us. 10 So if I do come, I will call attention to what he is doing—slandering us with wicked words. Not even content with that, he refuses to welcome the brethren, and even forbids those who want to do so—throwing them out of the community!
Do Good Like God Does
11 Loved ones, do not imitate what is evil but what is good. The one who does good is of God; the one who does evil has not seen God.
Virtue Is Honorable
12 Demetrius has a good testimony from everyone, even from the truth itself. We also vouch for him—and you know that our testimony is true.
Fellowship Is Desirable
13 I have much to write you, but I don’t want to write to you with ink and pen. 14 But I hope to see you soon, and we will speak face to face.
15 Shalom aleichem. The friends here send their greetings. Greet the friends there by name.
Joyful Restoration of Zion
Psalm 126
1 A Song of Ascents.
When Adonai restored the captives of Zion,
it was as if we were dreaming.
2 Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
and our tongue with a song of joy.
Then they said among the nations,
“Adonai has done great things for them.”
3 Adonai has done great things for us
—we are joyful!
4 Restore us from captivity, Adonai,
like streams in the Negev.
5 Those who sow in tears
will reap with a song of joy.
6 Whoever keeps going out weeping,
carrying his bag of seed,
will surely come back with a song of joy,
carrying his sheaves.
12 If a ruler listens to lies,
all his servants will be wicked.
13 The poor man and the oppressor have this in common:
Adonai gives light to the eyes of both.
14 If a king judges the poor with truth,
his throne will always be secure.
Tree of Life (TLV) Translation of the Bible. Copyright © 2015 by The Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society.