Book of Common Prayer
The Lord is King![a]
93 The Lord rules as King!
He wears royal power as his clothes.
His strength is like a belt round his body.[b]
So the world is safe and strong.
Nothing can shake it from its place.
2 You, Lord, have always ruled as King,
since before the beginning of time.
3 The floods of water have risen up, Lord.
They have risen with a loud noise.
Their waves beat against the land.[c]
4 But the Lord rules as King
high above everything!
He rules over the powerful waves of the sea,
with all their great noise!
5 Lord, your rules remain strong and true.
Your house will always be holy,
because you are holy.
Sing a new song![a]
96 Sing a new song to praise the Lord!
All the world,
sing to praise the Lord!
2 Sing to praise the Lord's great name!
Every day, tell people the message
that he has rescued us.
3 Tell the other nations that he is very great.
Tell all of them
about the great things that he has done.
4 Yes, the Lord is great!
Everyone should praise him as he deserves.
People should respect him with fear,
more than all other gods.
5 All the other nations' gods are useless idols.
But the Lord made the heavens.
6 We see that he is a very great king.
His holy home is full of his power and his beauty.
7 You people of other nations,
recognize that the Lord is great and powerful.
8 Agree that the Lord's name is great.
Bring a gift to offer to him in his temple.
9 Worship the Lord,
who is beautiful and holy.
Everyone on earth must shake with fear in front of him.
10 Tell all the nations,
‘The Lord rules as King!’
He has fixed the world in its place,
so that nothing can shake it.
He will judge all the people of the world fairly.
11 The earth and the sky
should be happy!
The sea and everything in it
should shout aloud!
12 The fields and all their crops should shout with joy!
Then all the trees in the forests will also sing
because they are so happy!
13 They will sing to praise the Lord,
for he will come to judge the earth.
He is a fair judge.
He will judge all the people of the world with his truth.
David wrote this song when he made the Philistine king think that he was crazy. He wanted the king to send him away.[a]
God is great![b]
34 I will always praise the Lord.
All the time I will sing to praise him.
2 I will boast that the Lord is great!
I want weak people to hear that.
I want them to be happy!
3 Join with me to tell people that the Lord is great!
Together we will make his name famous.
4 I asked the Lord to help me,
and he answered me.
He saved me from everything that made me afraid.
5 People who trust the Lord to help them
will be very happy.
Their faces will be bright,
and they will not be ashamed.
6 I was weak and helpless,
so I called out to the Lord.
The Lord heard me.
He saved me from all my troubles.
7 The Lord's angel is very near
to people who respect and obey the Lord.
He keeps them safe from danger.
8 Taste and see that the Lord is good!
God blesses people who turn to him
to keep them safe.
9 All you people who belong to the Lord,
continue to obey him.
People who respect the Lord
will have the things that they need.
10 Even young lions may not have food,
so that they become hungry.
But people who trust the Lord for help
will receive every good thing that they need.
11 Children, come and listen to me!
I will teach you how to respect the Lord.
12 Do you want to live a good life?
Do you want your life to be long and happy?
13 If so, do not speak any evil words.
Do not tell lies to deceive people.
14 Do good things instead of evil things.
Try to bring peace into people's lives.
15 The Lord watches over righteous people.
He hears them when they call to him for help.
16 But the Lord turns against people who do evil things.
He causes everybody to forget that they ever lived.
17 The Lord hears his righteous people
when they call for help.
He saves them from all their troubles.
18 When people are upset,
the Lord is near to them.
He saves those who feel very weak and upset.
19 Righteous people may often have troubles,
but the Lord saves them from every danger.
20 The Lord keeps them safe.
Not even one of their bones is broken!
21 Evil things will return to kill wicked people.
Whoever hates God's own people
will receive punishment.
22 The Lord saves the lives of his servants.
Everyone who trusts the Lord to keep them safe
will not receive punishment as a guilty person.
9 The Lord Almighty said this:
‘I will let the enemy take all the people from Israel,
like a farmer who picks all the grapes from his vine.
So check the vines carefully,
to see if there are some grapes that you can save.’
10 I replied,
‘If I speak to people and I warn them,
nobody will listen to me.
They have shut their ears so that they cannot hear.
They hate the Lord's message.
They do not want to hear it.
11 I am as angry with them as you are, Lord.
I can no longer control my anger.’
The Lord replied,
‘Tell everyone how angry you are!
Tell the children who play in the streets,
Tell the young men who meet together.
Include all the men and their wives,
as well as the old people, and those who are near to death.
12 I will give their houses to other people to live in.
Other people will take their fields and their wives.
Yes, I will punish the people who live in this land.’
That is what the Lord says.
13 ‘They all cheat other people to get what they want.
Important people and ordinary people do that.
Prophets and priests do that.
They love to deceive people.
14 They tell my people that their wounds are not bad.
They say to them,
“No problem! You will have peace!”
But there will be no peace for my people.
15 They are not ashamed of the disgusting things that they do.
They do not even know what shame is.
They have forgotten how to be ashamed.
So they will fall to the ground,
as other people have fallen.
When I decide to punish them,
that will be the end of them.’
That is what the Lord says.
Use your bodies in a good way
12 Some of you believers may say, ‘I am free to do anything that I want to do.’ That may be true, but not everything will help you. I could say, ‘I am free to do the things that I want to do.’ Yes, but I will not let anything rule over me.
13 Some of you may say, ‘God made food to feed our bodies. That is why people have stomachs. But one day God will destroy both stomachs and food.’ Yes, but the Lord gave our bodies to us. Our bodies belong to the Lord. So you should not use your bodies to have sex in a wrong way.[a] 14 God raised the Lord Jesus after he died. And God will use his power to make us alive again too.[b]
15 You know that your bodies are parts of Christ's own body. So you must never take your body and make it join with a prostitute's body. That is like you have done it with part of Christ's body. Never let that happen! 16 Anyone who makes his own body join to a prostitute becomes one body with that prostitute. You should know that. It says in the Bible:
‘The man and the woman become as one body.’[c]
17 But everyone who is united to the Lord has the same spirit as him. 18 So never have sex in a wrong way! You may say, ‘If a person does a bad thing, it is not his body that does it.’ But if you have sex in a wrong way, you are doing a bad thing to your own body. 19 Remember this: Your body is the home of God's Holy Spirit. God gave his Holy Spirit to you and he lives in you. You do not belong to yourselves any longer. 20 God bought you for himself. He paid the price for you. So use your body to show how great God is.[d]
A man with many bad spirits
5 Jesus and his disciples came to the other side of the lake. They came to a place where the Gerasene people lived.[a]
2-4 Jesus got out of the boat. Immediately, a man with a bad spirit in him came to him. This man lived outside, among some graves. He was very strong and nobody could hold him. People often put chains around his ankles to hold him. They wanted to keep him in a safe place. But he broke the chains that held him. 5 The man often walked in the place where the dead people were and on the hills. Every day and every night, he screamed and he used stones to cut himself.
6 He saw Jesus a long way away and he ran to meet him. He went down on his knees in front of Jesus. 7 He screamed loudly, ‘Jesus, you are the Son of the Most High God! What are you doing here? Please, promise God that you will not hurt me.’ 8 He said that because Jesus had already said to the bad spirit, ‘Come out of this man.’
9 Then Jesus asked the man, ‘What is your name?’
The man replied, ‘My name is Army because there are so many bad spirits in me.’
10 He said to Jesus many times, ‘Please do not send these bad spirits away from this place.’
11 A large group of pigs was eating on the hill. 12 The bad spirits said, ‘Jesus, send us to the pigs. Let us go into them.’ 13 Jesus let them do this. So the bad spirits came out of the man and they went into the pigs. There were about 2,000 pigs. They rushed together down the hill into the lake. All the pigs died there in the water.
14 The men who were taking care of these pigs ran away. They told the people in the town and in the villages what had happened. Then those people came to see the place for themselves. 15 They came to Jesus. They saw the man that the army of bad spirits had ruled. He was now sitting there quietly. He was wearing clothes and his mind was well again. When the people saw this, they were afraid. 16 The people who had seen this told other people what had happened to the man. They also explained what happened to the pigs. 17 Then the people who lived there said to Jesus, ‘Please go away. Leave this place.’
18 Jesus got back into the boat. The man that the bad spirits had ruled spoke to him. He told Jesus that he wanted to go with him. 19 But Jesus did not let him do this. Jesus said to him, ‘Go to your home and to your friends. Tell them what the Lord has done for you. Tell them how he has been kind to you.’ 20 So the man went away. He began to speak to many people in the region called ‘The ten cities’. He told them about the great things that Jesus had done for him. All the people were very surprised.
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