1 And Balaam said to Balak, “Build seven altars here for me, and prepare as many calves, and the same number of rams.”
2 And when he had acted according to the words of Balaam, they placed a calf and a ram together on each altar.
3 And Balaam said to Balak: “Stand for a little while next to your holocaust, until I go, to see if perhaps the Lord will meet with me. And whatever he will command, I shall speak to you.”
4 And after he had quickly departed, God met with him. And Balaam, speaking to him, said: “I have set up seven altars, and I have placed a calf and a ram on each.”
5 Then the Lord placed the word in his mouth, and he said: “Return to Balak, and you shall say this.”
6 Returning, he found Balak standing next to his holocaust, with all the leaders of the Moabites.
7 And taking up his parable, he said: “Balak, king of the Moabites, has led me from Aram, from the mountains of the east. ‘Come forth,’ he said, ‘and curse Jacob. Hurry and condemn Israel.’
8 How shall I curse him, whom God has not cursed? For what reason would I condemn him, whom the Lord does not condemn?
9 I will look upon him from the tops of the stones, and I will consider him from the hills. This people shall dwell alone, and they shall not be counted among the nations.
10 Who can number the dust that is Jacob, and who can know the number of the stock of Israel? May my soul die a just death, and may my end be like theirs.”
11 And Balak said to Balaam: “What is this that you are doing? I called for you, in order to curse my enemies, and to the contrary, you bless them.”
12 He answered him, “How can I say anything other than what the Lord orders?”
13 Therefore, Balak said: “Come with me to another place, from where you may see a portion of Israel, though you cannot see them all. Curse them from there.”
14 And when he had led him to a lofty place, on the top of mount Pisgah, Balaam built seven altars, and placing upon each a calf and a ram,
15 he said to Balak, “Stand here next to your holocaust, while I continue on to meet him.”
16 And when the Lord had met him, and had put the word in his mouth, he said, “Return to Balak, and you shall say this to him.”
17 Returning, he found him standing next to his holocaust, and the leaders of the Moabites were with him. And Balak said to him, “What has the Lord spoken?”
18 But, taking up his parable, he said: “Stand, Balak, and pay attention. Listen, you son of Zippor.
19 God is not like a man, so that he would lie, nor is he like a son of man, so that he would be changed. Therefore, having spoken, will he not act? Has he ever spoken, and not fulfilled?
20 I was led here to bless, and I have no strength to hinder the blessing.
21 There is no idol in Jacob; neither is there a false image to be seen in Israel. The Lord his God is with him, and the resound of royal victory is in him.
22 God has led him away from Egypt; his strength is like that of the rhinoceros.
23 There is no soothsaying in Jacob, nor any divination in Israel. In their times, it shall be told to Jacob and to Israel what God has wrought.
24 Behold, the people will rise up like a lioness, and lie down like a lion. But they will not lie down until they devour the prey and drink the blood of the slain.”
25 And Balak said to Balaam, “Neither curse him, nor bless him.”
26 And he said, “Have I not told you that whatever God would command of me, I would do?”
27 And Balak said to him: “Come and I will lead you to another place. If perhaps it may please God, then you may curse them from there.”
28 And when he had led him on to the top of mount Peor, which looks out toward the wilderness,
29 Balaam said to him, “Build seven altars here for me, and prepare as many calves, and the same number of rams.”
30 Balak did as Balaam had said, and he placed on each altar a calf and a ram.
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1 Woe to the shepherds who scatter and tear apart the sheep of my pasture, says the Lord.
2 Because of this, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, to the shepherds who pasture my people: You have scattered my flock, and you have driven them away, and you have not visited them. Behold, I will visit upon you because of your evil pursuits, says the Lord.
3 And I will gather together the remnant of my flock from the entire earth, from the places to which I had cast them out. And I will return them to their own fields. And they will increase and be multiplied.
4 And I will raise up shepherds over them, and they will pasture them. They will no longer dread, and they will no longer fear. And no one among their number will be seeking more, says the Lord.
5 Behold, the days are approaching, says the Lord, when I will raise up to David a righteous branch. And a king will reign, and he will be wise. And he will exercise judgment and justice upon the earth.
6 In those days, Judah will be saved, and Israel will live in confidence. And this is the name that they will call him: ‘The Lord, our Just One.’
7 Because of this, behold, the days are approaching, says the Lord, when they will no longer say, ‘As the Lord lives, who led the sons of Israel away from the land of Egypt,’
8 but instead, ‘As the Lord lives, who led away and brought back the offspring of the house of Israel from the land of the north and from the entire earth,’ from the places to which I had cast them out. And they will live in their own land.”
9 To the prophets: “My heart is crushed within me. All my bones are trembling. I have become like an inebriated man, and like a man maddened by wine, before the face of the Lord, and before the face of his holy words.
10 For the earth is full of adulterers! And the earth has mourned before the face of evil talk. The plains of the desert have dried up, and their course has become hazardous, and their firmness has become uneven.”
11 For both the prophet and the priest have become polluted, and I have found their wickedness within my own house, says the Lord.
12 For this reason, their way will be like a slippery path in the dark. For they will be impelled forward, and they will fall in it. For I will bring evils over them, in the year of their visitation, says the Lord.
13 And I have seen the foolishness of the prophets of Samaria. They have prophesied in Baal, and they have deceived my people Israel.
14 And in the prophets of Jerusalem, I have seen the likeness of adulterers and the path of falsehood. And they have strengthened the hands of the wicked, so that each one would not convert from his malice. They have all become to me like Sodom, and its inhabitants have become like Gomorrah.”
15 Because of this, thus says the Lord of hosts to the prophets: “Behold, I will feed them absinthe, and I will give them gall to drink. For from the prophets of Jerusalem corruption has gone forth over the entire earth.”
16 Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Do not choose to listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you and deceive you. They speak a vision from their own heart, and not from the mouth of the Lord.
17 To those who blaspheme me, they say: ‘The Lord has said: You shall have peace.’ And to every one who walks in the depravity of his own heart, they have said: ‘No evil will overwhelm you.’ “
18 For who has been present in the counsel of the Lord, and who has seen and heard his word? Who has considered his word and heard it?
19 Behold, the whirlwind of the Lord’s indignation will go forth, and a tempest will break out; it will overwhelm the head of the impious.
20 The fury of the Lord will not return until it succeeds, and until it completes the plan of his heart. In the last days, you will understand this counsel.
21 I did not send these prophets, yet they hurry forward. I was not speaking to them, yet they were prophesying.
22 If they had stood in my counsel, and if I had made my words known to my people, certainly I would have turned them away from their evil ways and from their most wicked plans.
23 Do you not realize that I am a God close by, says the Lord, and not a God far away?
24 If a man is hidden in concealed places, do I not see him, says the Lord? Do I not fill up heaven and earth, says the Lord?
1 Unto the end, a psalm for David himself.
2 Blessed is he that understandeth concerning the needy and the poor: the Lord will deliver him in the evil day.
3 The Lord preserve him and give him life, and make him blessed upon the earth: and deliver him not up to the will of his enemies.
4 The Lord help him on his bed of sorrow: thou hast turned all his couch in his sickness.
5 I said: O Lord, be thou merciful to me: heal my soul, for I have sinned against thee.
6 My enemies have spoken evils against me: when shall he die and his name perish?
7 And if he came in to see me, he spoke vain things: his heart gathered together iniquity to itself. He went out and spoke to the same purpose.
8 All my enemies whispered together against me: they devised evils to me.
9 They determined against me an unjust word: shall he that sleepeth rise again no more?
10 For even the man of peace, in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, hath greatly supplanted me.
11 But thou, O Lord, have mercy on me, and raise me up again: and I will requite them.
12 By this I know, that thou hast had a good will for me: because my enemy shall not rejoice over me.
13 But thou hast upheld me by reason of my innocence: and hast established me in thy sight for ever.
14 Blessed by the Lord the God of Israel from eternity to eternity. So be it. So be it.
22 But when Jesus realized their thoughts, responding, he said to them: “What are you thinking in your hearts?
23 Which is easier to say: ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Rise up and walk?’
24 But so that you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins,” he said to the paralytic, “I say to you to: Rise up, take up your bed, and go into your house.”
25 And at once, rising up in their sight, he took up the bed on which he was lying, and he went away to his own house, magnifying God.
26 And astonishment took hold of everyone, and they were magnifying God. And they were filled with fear, saying: “For we have seen miracles today.”
27 And after these things, he went out, and he saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the customs office. And he said to him, “Follow me.”
28 And leaving behind everything, rising up, he followed him.
29 And Levi made a great feast for him in his own house. And there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others, who were sitting at table with them.
30 But the Pharisees and scribes were murmuring, saying to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”
31 And responding, Jesus said to them: “It is not those who are well who need a doctor, but those who have maladies.
32 I have not come to call the just, but sinners to repentance.”
33 But they said to him, “Why do the disciples of John fast frequently, and make supplications, and those of the Pharisees act similarly, while yours eat and drink?”
34 And he said to them: “How can you cause the sons of the groom to fast, while the groom is still with them?
35 But the days will come when the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast, in those days.”
36 Then he also made a comparison for them: “For no one sews a patch from a new garment onto an old garment. Otherwise, he both disrupts the new one, and the patch from the new one does not join together with the old one.
37 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine ruptures the wineskins, and it will be poured out, and the wineskins will be lost.
38 Instead, the new wine is put into new wineskins, and both are preserved.
39 And no one who is drinking the old, soon wishes for the new. For he says, ‘The old is better.’ “
