TORAH PORTION FROM AUG 17-23 2008

SINCE WHAT ISRAEL READS WILL BE FULFILLED IN THAT WEEK I WILL BE PUTTING THE WEEKLY TORAH PORTION ON FOR ALL OF US TO KEEP TRACK OF ISRAEL HAPPENINGS.

TORAH PORTION FROM AUG 17, 2008 6PM TO AUG 23,2008

DEUTERONOMY 7:12 - 11:25

1st Portion
Chapter 7
12. And it will be, because you will heed these ordinances and keep them and perform, that the Lord, your God, will keep for you the covenant and the kindness that He swore to your forefathers.
13. And He will love you and bless you and multiply you; He will bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your soil, your grain, your wine, and your oil, the offspring of your cattle and the choice of your flocks, in the land which He swore to your forefathers to give you.
14. You shall be blessed above all peoples: There will be no sterile male or barren female among you or among your livestock.
15. And the Lord will remove from you all illness, and all of the evil diseases of Egypt which you knew, He will not set upon you, but He will lay them upon all your enemies.
16. And you shall consume all the peoples which the Lord your God gives you; you shall not spare them, nor shall you worship their gods, for that will be a snare for you.
17. Will you say to yourself, These nations are more numerous than I; how will I be able to drive them out? 18. You shall not fear them. You shall surely remember what the Lord, your God, did to Pharaoh and to all of Egypt:
19. The great trials that your eyes saw, the signs, the wonders, the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm with which the Lord, your God, brought you out. So will the Lord, Your God, do to all the peoples you fear.
20. And also the tzir'ah, the Lord, your God, will incite against them, until the survivors and those who hide from you perish.
21. You shall not be terrified of them, for the Lord, your God, Who is in your midst, is a great and awesome God.
22. And the Lord, your God, will drive out those nations from before you, little by little. You will not be able to destroy them quickly, lest the beasts of the field outnumber you.
23. But the Lord, your God, will deliver them to you, and He will confound them with great confusion, until they are destroyed.
24. And He will deliver their kings into your hand, and you will destroy their name from beneath the heavens; no man will be able to stand up before you, until you have destroyed them.
25. The graven images of their gods you will burn with fire; you shall not covet the silver or gold that is upon them and take it for yourself, lest you be ensnared by it, for it is an abomination to the Lord, your God.
26. Nor should you bring an abomination into your house, lest you be are to be destroyed like it, but you shall utterly detest it, and you shall utterly abhor it; for it is to be destroyed.

Chapter 8
1. Every commandment that I command you this day you shall keep to do, that you may live and multiply, and come and possess the land that the Lord swore to your forefathers.
2. And you shall remember the entire way on which the Lord, your God, led you these forty years in the desert, in order to afflict you to test you, to know what is in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.
3. And He afflicted you and let you go hungry, and then fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your forefathers know, so that He would make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but rather by, whatever comes forth from the mouth of the Lord does man live.
4. Your clothing did not wear out upon you, nor did your foot swell these forty years.
5. You shall know in your heart, that just as a man chastises his son, so does the Lord, your God, chastise you.
6. And you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God, to go in His ways, and to fear Him.
7. For the Lord your God is bringing you to a good land, a land with brooks of water, fountains and depths, that emerge in valleys and mountains,
8. a land of wheat and barley, vines and figs and pomegranates, a land of oil producing olives and honey,
9. a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, you will lack nothing in it, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose mountains you will hew copper.
10. And you will eat and be sated, and you shall bless the Lord, your God, for the good land He has given you.

2nd Portion
Chapter 8
11. Beware that you do not forget the Lord, your God, by not keeping His commandments, His ordinances, and His statutes, which I command you this day,
12. lest you eat and be sated, and build good houses and dwell therein,
13. and your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold increase, and all that you have increases,
14. and your heart grows haughty, and you forget the Lord, your God, Who has brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage,
15. Who led you through that great and awesome desert, [in which were] snakes, vipers and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water; who brought water for you out of solid rock,
16. Who fed you with manna in the desert, which your forefathers did not know, in order to afflict you and in order to test you, to benefit you in your end,
17. and you will say to yourself, My strength and the might of my hand that has accumulated this wealth for me.
18. But you must remember the Lord your God, for it is He that gives you strength to make wealth, in order to establish His covenant which He swore to your forefathers, as it is this day.
19. And it will be, if you forget the Lord your God and follow other gods, and worship them, and prostrate yourself before them, I bear witness against you this day, that you will surely perish.
20. As the nations that the Lord destroys before you, so will you perish; since you will not obey the Lord your God.

Chapter 9
1. Hear, O Israel: Today, you are crossing the Jordan to come in to possess nations greater and stronger than you, great cities, fortified up to the heavens.
2. A great and tall people, the children of the 'Anakim, whom you know and of whom you have heard said, Who can stand against the children of Anak?
3. You shall know this day, that it is the Lord your God Who passes over before you as a consuming fire He will destroy them, and He will subdue them before you; and you shall drive out them and destroy them quickly, as the Lord spoke to you.

3rd Portion
Chapter 9
4. Do not say to yourself, when the Lord, your God, has repelled them from before you, saying, Because of my righteousness, the Lord has brought me to possess this land, and [that] because of the wickedness of these nations, the Lord drives them out from before you.
5. Not because of your righteousness or because of the honesty of your heart, do you come to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations, the Lord your God drives them out from before you, and in order to establish the matter that the Lord swore to your forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
6. You shall know that, not because of your righteousness, the Lord, your God, gives you this land to possess it; for you are a stiffnecked people.
7. Remember do not forget, how you angered the Lord, your God, in the desert; from the day that you went out of the land of Egypt, until you came to this place, you have been rebelling against the Lord.
8. At Horeb, you angered the Lord, and the Lord was incensed with you to destroy you.
9. When I ascended the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant which the Lord made with you, I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water;
10. and the Lord gave me two stone tablets, inscribed by the finger of God, and on them was [inscribed] according to all the words that the Lord spoke with you on the mountain from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly.
11. And it came to pass at the end of forty days and forty nights, that the Lord gave me two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant.
12. And the Lord said to me, Arise, descend quickly from here, for your people whom you have brought out of Egypt have become corrupt; they have quickly deviated from the way which I commanded them; they have made for themselves a molten image.
13. And the Lord spoke to me [further], saying, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people.
14. Leave Me alone, and I will destroy them and obliterate their name from beneath the heavens, and I will make you into a nation mightier and more numerous than they. 15. So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire, and the two tablets of the covenant were on my two hands.
16. And I saw, and behold, you had sinned against the Lord, your God; you had made yourselves a molten calf; you had deviated quickly from the way which the Lord had commanded you.
17. So I grasped the two tablets, cast them out of my two hands, and shattered them before your eyes.
18. And I fell down before the Lord as before, forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sins you had committed, by doing evil in the eyes of the Lord to anger Him.
19. For I was frightened of the wrath and the fury that the Lord was angry with you to destroy you, and the Lord hearkened to me also at that time.
20. And with Aaron, the Lord was very furious, to destroy him; so I prayed also for Aaron at that time.
21. And I took your sin the calf, which you had made, and I burned it with fire, and I crushed it, grinding it well, until it was fine dust, and I cast its dust into the brook that descends from the mountain.
22. And at Tav'erah, and at Massah, and at Kivroth Hata'avah, you provoked the Lord to anger.
23. And when the Lord sent you from Kadesh Barnea, saying, Go up and possess the land I have given you, you defied the word of the Lord your God, and you did not believe Him, nor did you obey Him.
24. You have been rebelling against the Lord since the day I became acquainted with you.
25. So I fell down before the Lord the forty days and the forty nights that I had fallen down; because the Lord had said to destroy you.
26. And I prayed to the Lord and said, O Lord God, do not destroy Your people and Your inheritance, which You have redeemed in Your greatness, and which You have brought out of Egypt with mighty hand.
27. Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; do not turn to the stubbornness of this people, to their wickedness, or to their sin.
28. Lest [the people of] the land from which you brought us out will say, Because of the Lord's inability to bring them to the land about which He spoke to them, and because of His hatred toward them, He has brought them out to slay them in the desert.
29. But they are Your people and Your inheritance, which You brought out with Your great strength and with Your outstretched arm.

4th Portion
Chapter 10
1. At that time, the Lord said to me, Hew for yourself two stone tablets like the first ones and come up to Me onto the mountain, and make for yourself a wooden ark,
2. And I shall inscribe on the tablets the words that were upon the first tablets which you shattered and you shall place them into the ark.
3. So I made an ark of acacia wood, and I hewed two stone tablets like the first ones, and I ascended the mountain, with the two tablets in my hand.
4. And He inscribed on the tablets, like the first writing, the Ten Commandments, which the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain, from the midst of the fire, on the day of the assembly, and the Lord gave them to me.
5. And I turned and came down from the mountain, and placed the tablets in the ark which I had made, and there they were, as the Lord had commanded me.
6. The children of Israel journeyed from the wells of B'nei Ya'akan to Moserah; there Aaron died, and there he was buried; and Eleazar his son served as kohen in his stead.
7. From there, they journeyed to Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Yotvath, a land with streams of water.
8. At that time, the Lord separated the tribe of Levi to bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord to serve Him, and to bless in His Name, to this day.
9. Therefore, Levi has no portion or inheritance with his brothers; the Lord is his inheritance, as the Lord, your God spoke to him.
10. And I remained on the mountain like the first days forty days and forty nights, and the Lord hearkened to me also at that time; the Lord did not wish to destroy you.
11. And the Lord said to me, Arise, go to lead the travels before the people, so that they may come and possess the land I promised their forefathers to give them.

5th Portion
Chapter 10
12. And now, O Israel, what does the Lord, your God, demand of you? Only to fear the Lord, your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, and to worship the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul,
13. to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes, which I command you this day, for your good.
14. Behold, to the Lord, your God, belong the heavens and the heavens of the heavens, the earth, and all that is on it.
15. Only your forefathers the Lord desired, to love them, and He chose their seed after them you, out of all peoples, as it is this day.
16. You shall circumcise the foreskin of your heart, therefore, and be no more stiffnecked.
17. For the Lord, your God, is God of gods and the Lord of the lords, the great mighty and awesome God, Who will show no favor, nor will He take a bribe.
18. He executes the judgment of the orphan and widow, and He loves the stranger, to give him bread and clothing.
19. You shall love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
20. You shall fear the Lord, your God, worship Him, and cleave to Him and swear by His Name.
21. He is your praise and He is your God, Who did these great and awesome things for you, which your eyes have seen.
22. With seventy souls, Your forefathers descended to Egypt, and now the Lord, your God, has made you as the stars of heaven in abundance.

Chapter 11
1. [Therefore] you shall love the Lord, your God, keep His charge, His statutes, His ordinances, and His commandments, all the days.
2. And you shall know this day; that [I speak] not with your children, who did not know and who did not see the chastisement of the Lord, your God, His greatness, His mighty hand, and His outstretched arm,
3. His signs, and His deeds, which He performed in the midst of Egypt, to Pharaoh, king of Egypt and to his entire land,
4. and what He did to the army of Egypt, to its steeds, and to its chariots, that He caused the waters of the Red Sea to inundate them when they pursued you, and the Lord destroyed them, to this day,
5. and what He did for you in the desert, until you arrived at this place,
6. and what He did to Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben, that the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up and their households and their tents, and all the possessions at their feet, in the midst of all Israel.
7. But your eyes, which have seen all the great work of the Lord, which He did.
8. [Therefore] keep all the commandments that I command you this day, in order that you may be strong and come and possess the land to which you are crossing, to possess it,
9. and in order that you may prolong your days on the land that the Lord swore to your forefathers to give to them and to their seed a land flowing with milk and honey.

6th Portion
Chapter 11
10. For the land to which you are coming to possess is not like the land of Egypt, out of which you came, where you sowed your seed and which you watered by foot, like a vegetable garden.
11. But the land, to which you pass to possess, is a land of mountains and valleys and absorbs water from the rains of heaven,
12. a land the Lord, your God, looks after; the eyes of Lord your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.
13. And it will be, if you hearken to My commandments that I command you this day to love the Lord, your God, and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul,
14. I will give the rain of your land at its time, the early rain and the latter rain, and you will gather in your grain, your wine, and your oil.
15. And I will give grass in your field for your livestock, and you will eat and be sated.
16. Beware, lest your heart be misled, and you turn away and worship strange gods and prostrate yourselves before them.
17. And the wrath of the Lord will be kindled against you, and He will close off the heavens, and there will be no rain, and the ground will not give its produce, and you will perish quickly from upon the good land that the Lord gives you.
18. And you shall set these words of Mine upon your heart and upon your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand and they shall be for ornaments between your eyes.
19. And you shall teach them to your sons to speak with them, when you sit in your house and when you walk on the way and when you lie down and when you rise.
20. And you shall inscribe them upon the doorposts of your house and upon your gates,
21. in order that your days may increase and the days of your children, on the land which the Lord swore to your forefathers to give them, as the days of heaven above the earth.

7th Portion
Chapter 11
22. For if you keep all these commandments which I command you to do them, to love the Lord, your God, to walk in all His ways, and to cleave to Him,
23. then the Lord will drive out all these nations from before you, and you will possess nations greater and stronger than you.
24. Every place upon which the soles of your feet will tread, will be yours: from the desert and the Lebanon, from the river, the Euphrates River, and until the western sea, will be your boundary.
25. No man will stand up before you; the Lord your God will cast the fear of you and the dread of you on all the land upon which you tread, as He spoke to you.

PROPHETS PORTION

ISAIAH 49:14 - 51:3
14 But Zion said, The LORD hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me.
15 Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.
16 Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.
17 Thy children shall make haste; thy destroyers and they that made thee waste shall go forth of thee.
18 Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold: all these gather themselves together, and come to thee. As I live, saith the LORD, thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all, as with an ornament, and bind them on thee, as a bride doeth.
19 For thy waste and thy desolate places, and the land of thy destruction, shall even now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants, and they that swallowed thee up shall be far away.
20 The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other, shall say again in thine ears, The place is too strait for me: give place to me that I may dwell.
21 Then shalt thou say in thine heart, Who hath begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children, and am desolate, a captive, and removing to and fro? and who hath brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where had they been?
22 Thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people: and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders.
23 And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers: they shall bow down to thee with their face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet; and thou shalt know that I am the LORD: for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me.
24 Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered?
25 But thus saith the LORD, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered: for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children.
26 And I will feed them that oppress thee with their own flesh; and they shall be drunken with their own blood, as with sweet wine: and all flesh shall know that I the LORD am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob.

isaiah 50:1-11
1 Thus saith the LORD, Where is the bill of your mother’s divorcement, whom I have put away? or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away.
2 Wherefore, when I came, was there no man? when I called, was there none to answer? Is my hand shortened at all, that it cannot redeem? or have I no power to deliver? behold, at my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness: their fish stinketh, because there is no water, and dieth for thirst.
3 I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.
4 The Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned.
5 The Lord GOD hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back.
6 I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting.
7 For the Lord GOD will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed.
8 He is near that justifieth me; who will contend with me? let us stand together: who is mine adversary? let him come near to me.
9 Behold, the Lord GOD will help me; who is he that shall condemn me? lo, they all shall wax old as a garment; the moth shall eat them up.
10 Who is among you that feareth the LORD, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the LORD, and stay upon his God.
11 Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks: walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow.

ISAIAH 51:1-3
1 Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the LORD: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged.
2 Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him.
3 For the LORD shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.

NEW TESTAMENT PORTION

MATTHEW 4:1-11
1 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
2 And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.
3 And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
5 Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,
6 And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
7 Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
9 And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
11 Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.

LUKE 4:1-14
1 And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,
2 Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered.
3 And the devil said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread.
4 And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.
5 And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.
6 And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.
7 If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.
8 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
9 And he brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence:
10 For it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee:
11 And in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
12 And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
13 And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season.
14 And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about.

JAMES 5:7-11
7 Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.
8 Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.
9 Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door.
10 Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience.
11 Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.