Book of Common Prayer
God the Supreme Ruler
97 The Lord is king! Earth, be glad!
Rejoice, you islands of the seas!
2 Clouds and darkness surround him;
he rules with righteousness and justice.
3 Fire goes in front of him
and burns up his enemies around him.
4 His lightning lights up the world;
the earth sees it and trembles.
5 The hills melt like wax before the Lord,
before the Lord of all the earth.
6 The heavens proclaim his righteousness,
and all the nations see his glory.
7 Everyone who worships idols is put to shame;
all the gods bow down[a] before the Lord.
8 The people of Zion are glad,
and the cities of Judah rejoice
because of your judgments, O Lord.
9 Lord Almighty, you are ruler of all the earth;
you are much greater than all the gods.
10 The Lord loves those who hate evil;[b]
he protects the lives of his people;
he rescues them from the power of the wicked.
11 Light shines on the righteous,
and gladness on the good.
12 All you that are righteous be glad
because of what the Lord has done!
Remember what the holy God has done,
and give thanks to him.
God the Supreme King
99 (A)The Lord is king,
and the people tremble.
He sits on his throne above the winged creatures,
and the earth shakes.
2 The Lord is mighty in Zion;
he is supreme over all the nations.
3 Everyone will praise his great and majestic name.
Holy is he!
4 Mighty king,[a] you love what is right;
you have established justice in Israel;
you have brought righteousness and fairness.
5 Praise the Lord our God;
worship before his throne!
Holy is he!
6 Moses and Aaron were his priests,
and Samuel was one who prayed to him;
they called to the Lord, and he answered them.
7 (B)He spoke to them from the pillar of cloud;
they obeyed the laws and commands that he gave them.
8 O Lord, our God, you answered your people;
you showed them that you are a God who forgives,
even though you punished them for their sins.
9 Praise the Lord our God,
and worship at his sacred hill![b]
The Lord our God is holy.
A Hymn of Praise[c]
100 Sing to the Lord, all the world!
2 Worship the Lord with joy;
come before him with happy songs!
3 Acknowledge that the Lord is God.
He made us, and we belong to him;
we are his people, we are his flock.
4 Enter the Temple gates with thanksgiving;
go into its courts with praise.
Give thanks to him and praise him.
5 (C)The Lord is good;
his love is eternal
and his faithfulness lasts forever.
God the Judge of All
94 Lord, you are a God who punishes;
reveal your anger!
2 You are the judge of us all;
rise and give the proud what they deserve!
3 How much longer will the wicked be glad?
How much longer, Lord?
4 How much longer will criminals be proud
and boast about their crimes?
5 They crush your people, Lord;
they oppress those who belong to you.
6 They kill widows and orphans,
and murder the strangers who live in our land.
7 They say, “The Lord does not see us;
the God of Israel does not notice.”
8 My people, how can you be such stupid fools?
When will you ever learn?
9 God made our ears—can't he hear?
He made our eyes—can't he see?
10 He scolds the nations—won't he punish them?[a]
He is the teacher of us all—hasn't he any knowledge?
11 (A)The Lord knows what we think;
he knows how senseless our reasoning is.
12 Lord, how happy are those you instruct,
the ones to whom you teach your law!
13 You give them rest from days of trouble
until a pit is dug to trap the wicked.
14 The Lord will not abandon his people;
he will not desert those who belong to him.
15 Justice will again be found in the courts,
and all righteous people will support it.
16 Who stood up for me against the wicked?
Who took my side against the evildoers?
17 If the Lord had not helped me,
I would have gone quickly to the land of silence.[b]
18 I said, “I am falling”;
but your constant love, O Lord, held me up.
19 Whenever I am anxious and worried,
you comfort me and make me glad.
20 You have nothing to do with corrupt judges,
who make injustice legal,
21 who plot against good people
and sentence the innocent to death.
22 But the Lord defends me;
my God protects me.
23 He will punish them for their wickedness
and destroy them for their sins;
the Lord our God will destroy them.
A Song of Praise
95 Come, let us praise the Lord!
Let us sing for joy to God, who protects us!
2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and sing joyful songs of praise.
3 For the Lord is a mighty God,
a mighty king over all the gods.
4 He rules over the whole earth,
from the deepest caves to the highest hills.
5 He rules over the sea, which he made;
the land also, which he himself formed.
6 Come, let us bow down and worship him;
let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!
7 (B)He is our God;
we are the people he cares for,
the flock for which he provides.
Listen today to what he says:
8 (C)“Don't be stubborn, as your ancestors were at Meribah,
as they were that day in the desert at Massah.
9 There they put me to the test and tried me,
although they had seen what I did for them.
10 For forty years I was disgusted with those people.
I said, ‘How disloyal they are!
They refuse to obey my commands.’
11 (D)I was angry and made a solemn promise:
‘You will never enter the land
where I would have given you rest.’”
On Observing the Sabbath
19 The Lord said to me, “Jeremiah, go and announce my message at the People's Gate, through which the kings of Judah enter and leave the city; then go to all the other gates of Jerusalem. 20 Tell the kings and all the people of Judah and everyone who lives in Jerusalem and enters these gates, to listen to what I say. 21 (A)Tell them that if they love their lives, they must not carry any load on the Sabbath; they must not carry anything in through the gates of Jerusalem 22 (B)or carry anything out of their houses on the Sabbath. They must not work on the Sabbath; they must observe it as a sacred day, as I commanded their ancestors. 23 Their ancestors did not listen to me or pay any attention. Instead, they became stubborn; they would not obey me or learn from me.
24 “Tell these people that they must obey all my commands. They must not carry any load in through the gates of this city on the Sabbath. They must observe the Sabbath as a sacred day and must not do any work at all. 25 Then their kings and princes will enter the gates of Jerusalem and have the same royal power that David had. Together with the people of Judah and of Jerusalem, they will ride in chariots and on horses, and the city of Jerusalem will always be filled with people. 26 People will come from the towns of Judah and from the villages around Jerusalem; they will come from the territory of Benjamin, from the foothills, from the mountains, and from southern Judah. They will bring to my Temple burnt offerings and sacrifices, grain offerings and incense, as well as thank offerings. 27 But they must obey me and observe the Sabbath as a sacred day. They must not carry any load through the gates of Jerusalem on that day, for if they do, I will set the gates of Jerusalem on fire. Fire will burn down the palaces of Jerusalem, and no one will be able to put it out.”
13 But does this mean that what is good caused my death? By no means! It was sin that did it; by using what is good, sin brought death to me, in order that its true nature as sin might be revealed. And so, by means of the commandment sin is shown to be even more terribly sinful.
The Conflict in Us
14 We know that the Law is spiritual; but I am a mortal, sold as a slave to sin. 15 (A)I do not understand what I do; for I don't do what I would like to do, but instead I do what I hate. 16 Since what I do is what I don't want to do, this shows that I agree that the Law is right. 17 So I am not really the one who does this thing; rather it is the sin that lives in me. 18 I know that good does not live in me—that is, in my human nature. For even though the desire to do good is in me, I am not able to do it. 19 I don't do the good I want to do; instead, I do the evil that I do not want to do. 20 If I do what I don't want to do, this means that I am no longer the one who does it; instead, it is the sin that lives in me.
21 So I find that this law is at work: when I want to do what is good, what is evil is the only choice I have. 22 My inner being delights in the law of God. 23 But I see a different law at work in my body—a law that fights against the law which my mind approves of. It makes me a prisoner to the law of sin which is at work in my body. 24 What an unhappy man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is taking me to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who does this through our Lord Jesus Christ!
This, then, is my condition: on my own I can serve God's law only with my mind, while my human nature serves the law of sin.
Jesus Walks on the Water(A)
16 When evening came, Jesus' disciples went down to the lake, 17 got into a boat, and went back across the lake toward Capernaum. Night came on, and Jesus still had not come to them. 18 By then a strong wind was blowing and stirring up the water. 19 The disciples had rowed about three or four miles when they saw Jesus walking on the water, coming near the boat, and they were terrified. 20 “Don't be afraid,” Jesus told them, “it is I!” 21 Then they willingly took him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached land at the place they were heading for.
The People Seek Jesus
22 Next day the crowd which had stayed on the other side of the lake realized that there had been only one boat there. They knew that Jesus had not gone in it with his disciples, but that they had left without him. 23 Other boats, which were from Tiberias, came to shore near the place where the crowd had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. 24 When the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they got into those boats and went to Capernaum, looking for him.
Jesus the Bread of Life
25 When the people found Jesus on the other side of the lake, they said to him, “Teacher, when did you get here?”
26 Jesus answered, “I am telling you the truth: you are looking for me because you ate the bread and had all you wanted, not because you understood my miracles. 27 (B)Do not work for food that spoils; instead, work for the food that lasts for eternal life. This is the food which the Son of Man will give you, because God, the Father, has put his mark of approval on him.”
Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.