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Psalm 42

1  As the deer longs for the water brooks, ♦︎
   so longs my soul for you, O God.
2  My soul is athirst for God, even for the living God; ♦︎
   when shall I come before the presence of God?
3  My tears have been my bread day and night, ♦︎
   while all day long they say to me, ‘Where is now your God?’
4  Now when I think on these things, I pour out my soul: ♦︎
   how I went with the multitude
      and led the procession to the house of God,
5  With the voice of praise and thanksgiving, ♦︎
   among those who kept holy day.
6  Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul, ♦︎
   and why are you so disquieted within me?
7  O put your trust in God; ♦︎
   for I will yet give him thanks,
      who is the help of my countenance, and my God.
8  My soul is heavy within me; ♦︎
   therefore I will remember you from the land of Jordan,
      and from Hermon and the hill of Mizar.
9  Deep calls to deep in the thunder of your waterfalls; ♦︎
   all your breakers and waves have gone over me.
10  The Lord will grant his loving-kindness in the daytime; ♦︎
   through the night his song will be with me,
      a prayer to the God of my life.
11  I say to God my rock,
      ‘Why have you forgotten me, ♦︎
   and why go I so heavily, while the enemy oppresses me?’
12  As they crush my bones, my enemies mock me; ♦︎
   while all day long they say to me, ‘Where is now your God?’
13  Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul, ♦︎
   and why are you so disquieted within me?
14  O put your trust in God; ♦︎
   for I will yet give him thanks,
      who is the help of my countenance, and my God.

Psalm 43

1  Give judgement for me, O God,
      and defend my cause against an ungodly people; ♦︎
   deliver me from the deceitful and the wicked.
2  For you are the God of my refuge;
      why have you cast me from you, ♦︎
   and why go I so heavily, while the enemy oppresses me?
3  O send out your light and your truth, that they may lead me, ♦︎
   and bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling,
4  That I may go to the altar of God,
      to the God of my joy and gladness; ♦︎
   and on the lyre I will give thanks to you, O God my God.
5  Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul, ♦︎
   and why are you so disquieted within me?
6  O put your trust in God; ♦︎
   for I will yet give him thanks,
      who is the help of my countenance, and my God.

The Birth of Ishmael

16Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, bore him no children. She had an Egyptian slave-girl whose name was Hagar, ²and Sarai said to Abram, ‘You see that the Lord has prevented me from bearing children; go in to my slave-girl; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.’ And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. ³So, after Abram had lived for ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her slave-girl, and gave her to her husband Abram as a wife. ⁴He went in to Hagar, and she conceived; and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress. ⁵Then Sarai said to Abram, ‘May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my slave-girl to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the Lord judge between you and me!’ ⁶But Abram said to Sarai, ‘Your slave-girl is in your power; do to her as you please.’ Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she ran away from her.

7 The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. ⁸And he said, ‘Hagar, slave-girl of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?’ She said, ‘I am running away from my mistress Sarai.’ ⁹The angel of the Lord said to her, ‘Return to your mistress, and submit to her.’ ¹⁰The angel of the Lord also said to her, ‘I will so greatly multiply your offspring that they cannot be counted for multitude.’ ¹¹And the angel of the Lord said to her,
‘Now you have conceived and shall bear a son;
   you shall call him Ishmael,^*
   for the Lord has given heed to your affliction.
¹² He shall be a wild ass of a man,
with his hand against everyone,
   and everyone’s hand against him;
and he shall live at odds with all his kin.’
¹³So she named the Lord who spoke to her, ‘You are El-roi’;^* for she said, ‘Have I really seen God and remained alive after seeing him?’^{* 14}Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi;^* it lies between Kadesh and Bered.

15 For this reason he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, because a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions under the first covenant.^{* 16}Where a will^* is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. ¹⁷For a will^* takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive. ¹⁸Hence not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. ¹⁹For when every commandment had been told to all the people by Moses in accordance with the law, he took the blood of calves and goats,^* with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the scroll itself and all the people, ²⁰saying, ‘This is the blood of the covenant that God has ordained for you.’ ²¹And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent^* and all the vessels used in worship. ²²Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

Christ’s Sacrifice Takes Away Sin

23 Thus it was necessary for the sketches of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves need better sacrifices than these. ²⁴For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made by human hands, a mere copy of the true one, but he entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. ²⁵Nor was it to offer himself again and again, as the high priest enters the Holy Place year after year with blood that is not his own; ²⁶for then he would have had to suffer again and again since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself. ²⁷And just as it is appointed for mortals to die once, and after that the judgement, ²⁸so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.