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Psalm 144

1  Blessed be the Lord my rock, ♦︎
   who teaches my hands for war and my fingers for battle;
2  My steadfast help and my fortress,
      my stronghold and my deliverer,
      my shield in whom I trust, ♦︎
   who subdues the peoples under me.
3  O Lord, what are mortals that you should consider them; ♦︎
   mere human beings, that you should take thought for them?
4  They are like a breath of wind; ♦︎
   their days pass away like a shadow.
5  Bow your heavens, O Lord, and come down; ♦︎
   touch the mountains and they shall smoke.
6  Cast down your lightnings and scatter them; ♦︎
   shoot out your arrows and let thunder roar.
7  Reach down your hand from on high; ♦︎
   deliver me and take me out of the great waters,
      from the hand of foreign enemies,
8  Whose mouth speaks wickedness ♦︎
   and their right hand is the hand of falsehood.
9  O God, I will sing to you a new song; ♦︎
   I will play to you on a ten-stringed harp,
10  You that give salvation to kings ♦︎
   and have delivered David your servant.
11  Save me from the peril of the sword ♦︎
   and deliver me from the hand of foreign enemies,
12  Whose mouth speaks wickedness ♦︎
   and whose right hand is the hand of falsehood;
13  So that our sons in their youth
      may be like well-nurtured plants, ♦︎
   and our daughters like pillars
      carved for the corners of the temple;
14  Our barns be filled with all manner of store; ♦︎
   our flocks bearing thousands,
      and ten thousands in our fields;
15  Our cattle be heavy with young: ♦︎
   may there be no miscarriage or untimely birth,
      no cry of distress in our streets.
16  Happy are the people whose blessing this is. ♦︎
   Happy are the people who have the Lord for their God.

Homecoming

⁵ Who is that coming up from the wilderness,
   leaning upon her beloved?

Under the apple tree I awakened you.
There your mother was in labour with you;
   there she who bore you was in labour.

⁶ Set me as a seal upon your heart,
   as a seal upon your arm;
for love is strong as death,
   passion fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
   a raging flame.
⁷ Many waters cannot quench love,
   neither can floods drown it.
If one offered for love
   all the wealth of one’s house,
   it would be utterly scorned.

⁸ We have a little sister,
   and she has no breasts.
What shall we do for our sister,
   on the day when she is spoken for?
⁹ If she is a wall,
   we will build upon her a battlement of silver;
but if she is a door,
   we will enclose her with boards of cedar.
¹⁰ I was a wall,
   and my breasts were like towers;
then I was in his eyes
   as one who brings^* peace.
¹¹ Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-hamon;
   he entrusted the vineyard to keepers;
   each one was to bring for its fruit a thousand pieces of silver.
¹² My vineyard, my very own, is for myself;
   you, O Solomon, may have the thousand,
   and the keepers of the fruit two hundred!

¹³ O you who dwell in the gardens,
   my companions are listening for your voice;
   let me hear it.

¹⁴ Make haste, my beloved,
   and be like a gazelle
or a young stag
   upon the mountains of spices!

The Plot to Kill Jesus

45 Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him. ⁴⁶But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what he had done. ⁴⁷So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the council, and said, ‘What are we to do? This man is performing many signs. ⁴⁸If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place^* and our nation.’ ⁴⁹But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, ‘You know nothing at all! ⁵⁰You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.’ ⁵¹He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus was about to die for the nation, ⁵²and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the dispersed children of God. ⁵³So from that day on they planned to put him to death.

54 Jesus therefore no longer walked about openly among the Jews, but went from there to a town called Ephraim in the region near the wilderness; and he remained there with the disciples.

55 Now the Passover of the Jews was near, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before the Passover to purify themselves. ⁵⁶They were looking for Jesus and were asking one another as they stood in the temple, ‘What do you think? Surely he will not come to the festival, will he?’ ⁵⁷Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that anyone who knew where Jesus^* was should let them know, so that they might arrest him.