Biblical Hebrew Reading Practice

May the LORD bless you and keep you.

May the LORD make His face shine on you and be gracious to you.

May the LORD lift up His face toward you and give you peace.

A song of the ascents, of David. See how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to sit together as one.

Like the good oil on the head, running down onto the beard, Aaron's beard, running down over the collar of his robes;

like the dew of Hermon, running down onto the mountains of Zion,

for there the LORD commanded the blessing: life forever.

He has told you, O man, what is good,

and what does the LORD seek from you, if not to do justice and to love kindness

and to walk humbly with your God?

And Ruth said: Do not plead with me to leave you, to turn back from following you,

for where you go I will go, and where you stay the night I will stay;

your people is my people, and your God is my God.

Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried.

So may the LORD do to me, and so may He add,

if anything but death separates me and you.

Hear, O Israel: the LORD is our God, the LORD is one.

And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

And these words, which I command you today, shall be on your heart.

And you shall teach them to your children and speak of them

when you sit in your house and when you walk on the way, and when you lie down and when you get up.

And you shall tie them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as a band between your eyes.

And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

And the LORD said to Abram: Go for yourself from your land and from your birthplace and from your father's house

to the land that I will show you.

And I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, and be a blessing.

And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and all the families of the earth will be blessed in you.

A song for the ascents. I lift up my eyes to the mountains: from where will my help come?

My help is from the LORD, maker of heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot slip; your keeper will not slumber.

See, the keeper of Israel does not slumber and does not sleep.

The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade at your right hand.

By day the sun will not strike you, nor the moon by night.

The LORD will keep you from all harm; He will keep your soul.

The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in, from now and forever.

A psalm of David. The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not lack.

In green pastures He lets me lie down; beside still waters He leads me.

He restores my soul; He guides me in right paths for the sake of His name.

Even when I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no harm, for You are with me;

Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

You set a table before me in front of my enemies;

You have anointed my head with oil; my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and kindness will follow me all the days of my life,

and I will return to the house of the LORD for length of days.

To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under the heavens:

a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot what was planted;

a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to break down and a time to build;

a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance;

a time to throw stones and a time to gather stones,

a time to embrace and a time to keep far from embracing;

a time to search and a time to lose, a time to keep and a time to throw away;

a time to tear and a time to sew, a time to be silent and a time to speak;

a time to love and a time to hate, a time of war and a time of peace.

And it will be at the end of days: the mountain of the LORD's house will stand firm at the top of the mountains

and be lifted above the hills,

and all the nations will stream to it.

And many peoples will go

and say: Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob,

and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths,

for teaching (Torah) will go out from Zion, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

And He will judge between the nations and decide for many peoples,

and they will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks;

nation will not lift up sword against nation, and they will not learn war any more.

Happy is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the wicked,

and has not stood in the way of sinners, and has not sat in the seat of scoffers.

But his delight is in the teaching (Torah) of the LORD, and on His teaching he meditates day and night.

He will be like a tree planted by streams of water,

that gives its fruit in its season,

and its leaf does not wither,

and in all that he does he succeeds.

Not so the wicked: they are like the chaff that the wind drives away.

Therefore the wicked will not stand up in the judgment, nor sinners in the gathering of the righteous.

For the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will be lost.

And God spoke all these words, saying:

I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slaves.

You shall have no other gods before Me.

You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness

of what is in the heavens above, or what is on the earth beneath

or what is in the waters beneath the earth.

You shall not bow down to them or serve them,

for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God,

holding the guilt of the fathers against the children, to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate Me,

and doing kindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

You shall not take up the name of the LORD your God in vain,

for the LORD will not hold guiltless the one who takes up His name in vain.

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Six days you shall labor and do all your work,

but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God;

you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or female servant, or your animals,

or the stranger who is within your gates.

For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them,

and He rested on the seventh day;

therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Honor your father and your mother,

so that your days may be long on the land that the LORD your God is giving you.

You shall not murder.

You shall not commit adultery.

You shall not steal.

You shall not testify against your neighbor as a false witness.

You shall not covet your neighbor's house;

you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male or female servant, or his ox, or his donkey,

or anything that is your neighbor's.

Comfort, comfort My people, says your God.

Speak to the heart of Jerusalem and call out to her

that her time of service is over, that her guilt is paid off,

that she has taken from the hand of the LORD double for all her sins.

A voice calls out: In the wilderness clear the way of the LORD;

make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Every valley will be lifted up, and every mountain and hill made low;

and the crooked will become level ground, and the rough places a plain.

And the glory of the LORD will be revealed,

and all flesh will see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.

A voice says: Call out! And he said: What shall I call out?

All flesh is grass, and all its kindness is like the flower of the field.

The grass dries up, the flower fades, when the breath of the LORD blows on it;

surely the people is grass.

The grass dries up, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

And the earth was formless and empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep,

and the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

And God said: Let there be light. And there was light.

And God saw the light, that it was good,

and God separated between the light and the darkness.

And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night.

And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

And God said: Let there be an expanse in the middle of the waters,

and let it separate between waters and waters.

And God made the expanse,

and separated between the waters that were under the expanse

and the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so.

And God called the expanse Heavens. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

And God said: Let the waters under the heavens be gathered into one place,

and let the dry land appear. And it was so.

And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering of the waters He called Seas.

And God saw that it was good.

And God said: Let the earth sprout green growth, plants yielding seed,

fruit trees making fruit after their kind, with their seed in them, on the earth. And it was so.

And the earth brought out green growth, plants yielding seed after their kind,

and trees making fruit, with their seed in them, after their kind.

And God saw that it was good.

And there was evening and there was morning, a third day.

And God said: Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens

to separate between the day and the night,

and let them be for signs and for set times, and for days and years.

And let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth. And it was so.

And God made the two great lights:

the great light to rule the day,

and the small light to rule the night, and the stars.

And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth,

and to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate between the light and the darkness.

And God saw that it was good.

And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

And God said: Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures,

and let birds fly above the earth, on the face of the expanse of the heavens.

And God created the great sea monsters,

and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed, after their kind,

and every winged bird after its kind.

And God saw that it was good.

And God blessed them, saying:

Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth.

And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.

And God said: Let the earth bring out living creatures after their kind,

animals and creeping things and wild beasts after their kind. And it was so.

And God made the wild beasts after their kind and the animals after their kind,

and every creeping thing of the ground after its kind.

And God saw that it was good.

And God said: Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,

and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the animals and over all the earth,

and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

And God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him;

male and female He created them.

And God blessed them,

and God said to them: Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and master it,

and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

And God said: See, I have given you every plant yielding seed

that is on the face of all the earth,

and every tree that has in it the fruit of a tree yielding seed;

they will be yours for food.

And to every wild beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth

that has a living soul in it,

every green plant is for food. And it was so.

And God saw everything that He had made, and see, it was very good.

And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

And the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their host.

And on the seventh day God finished His work that He had done,

and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done.

And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy,

for on it He rested from all His work that God had created and made.