Shabbat Shuvah

This translation was taken from the JPS Tanakh

Hosea 14:2-10; Micah 7:18-20; Joel 2:15-27

Hosea 14

² Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God,
For you have fallen because of your sin.
³ Take words with you
And return to the Lord.
Say to Him:
“Forgive all guilt
And accept what is good;
Instead of bulls we will pay
[The offering of] our lips.
⁴ Assyria shall not save us,
No more will we ride on steeds;
Nor ever again will we call
Our handiwork our god,
Since in You alone orphans find pity!”

⁵ I will heal their affliction,
Generously will I take them back in love;
For My anger has turned away from them.
⁶ I will be to Israel like dew;
He shall blossom like the lily,
He shall strike root like a Lebanon tree.
⁷ His boughs shall spread out far,
His beauty shall be like the olive tree’s,
His fragrance like that of Lebanon.
⁸ They who sit in his shade shall be revived:
They shall bring to life new grain,
They shall blossom like the vine;
His scent shall be like the wine of Lebanon.
⁹ Ephraim [shall say]:
“What more have I to do with idols?
When I respond and look to Him,
I become like a verdant cypress.”
Your fruit is provided by Me.

¹⁰ He who is wise will consider these words,
He who is prudent will take note of them.
For the paths of the Lord are smooth;
The righteous can walk on them,
While sinners stumble on them.

Micah 7

¹⁸ Who is a God like You,
Forgiving iniquity
And remitting transgression;
Who has not maintained His wrath forever
Against the remnant of His own people,
Because He loves graciousness!
¹⁹ He will take us back in love;
He will cover up our iniquities,
You will hurl all our sins
Into the depths of the sea.
²⁰ You will keep faith with Jacob,
Loyalty to Abraham,
As You promised on oath to our fathers
In days gone by.
Sepharadim end here

Joel 2

¹⁵ Blow a horn in Zion,
Solemnize a fast,
Proclaim an assembly!
¹⁶ Gather the people,
Bid the congregation purify themselves.
Bring together the old,
Gather the babes
And the sucklings at the breast;
Let the bridegroom come out of his chamber,
The bride from her canopied couch.
¹⁷ Between the portico and the altar,
Let the priests, the Lord’s ministers, weep
And say:
“Oh, spare Your people, Lord!
Let not Your possession become a mockery,
To be taunted by nations!
Let not the peoples say,
‘Where is their God?'”

¹⁸ Then the Lord was roused
On behalf of His land
And had compassion
Upon His people.
¹⁹ In response to His people
The Lord declared:
“I will grant you the new grain,
The new wine, and the new oil,
And you shall have them in abundance.
Nevermore will I let you be
A mockery among the nations.
²⁰ I will drive the northerner far from you,
I will thrust it into a parched and desolate land — 
Its van to the Eastern Sea
And its rear to the Western Sea;
And the stench of it shall go up,
And the foul smell rise.”
For [the Lord] shall work great deeds.

²¹ Fear not, O soil, rejoice and be glad;
For the Lord has wrought great deeds.
²² Fear not, O beasts of the field,
For the pastures in the wilderness
Are clothed with grass.
The trees have borne their fruit;
Fig tree and vine
Have yielded their strength.
²³ O children of Zion, be glad,
Rejoice in the Lord your God.
For He has given you the early rain in [His] kindness,
Now He makes the rain fall [as] formerly — 
The early rain and the late — 
²⁴ And threshing floors shall be piled with grain,
And vats shall overflow with new wine and oil.

²⁵ “I will repay you for the years
Consumed by swarms and hoppers,
By grubs and locusts,
The great army I let loose against you.
²⁶ And you shall eat your fill
And praise the name of the Lord your God
Who dealt so wondrously with you — 
My people shall be shamed no more.
²⁷ And you shall know
That I am in the midst of Israel:
That I the Lord am your God
And there is no other.
And My people shall be shamed no more.”

Taken from Tanakh, The Holy Scriptures, (Philadelphia, Jerusalem: Jewish Publication Society) 1985.
Used by permission of The Jewish Publication Society. Copyright © 1962, 1992
Third Edition by the Jewish Publication Society.
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