Book of Common Prayer
A Prayer of Trust in God[a]
31 I come to you, Lord, for protection;
never let me be defeated.
You are a righteous God;
save me, I pray!
2 Hear me! Save me now!
Be my refuge to protect me;
my defense to save me.
3 You are my refuge and defense;
guide me and lead me as you have promised.
4 Keep me safe from the trap that has been set for me;
shelter me from danger.
5 (A)I place myself in your care.
You will save me, Lord;
you are a faithful God.
6 You hate those who worship false gods,
but I trust in you.
7 I will be glad and rejoice
because of your constant love.
You see my suffering;
you know my trouble.
8 You have not let my enemies capture me;
you have given me freedom to go where I wish.
9 Be merciful to me, Lord,
for I am in trouble;
my eyes are tired from so much crying;
I am completely worn out.
10 I am exhausted by sorrow,
and weeping has shortened my life.
I am weak from all my troubles;[b]
even my bones are wasting away.
11 All my enemies, and especially my neighbors,
treat me with contempt.
Those who know me are afraid of me;
when they see me in the street, they run away.
12 Everyone has forgotten me, as though I were dead;
I am like something thrown away.
13 I hear many enemies whispering;
terror is all around me.
They are making plans against me,
plotting to kill me.
14 But my trust is in you, O Lord;
you are my God.
15 I am always in your care;
save me from my enemies,
from those who persecute me.
16 Look on your servant with kindness;
save me in your constant love.
17 I call to you, Lord;
don't let me be disgraced.
May the wicked be disgraced;
may they go silently down to the world of the dead.
18 Silence those liars—
all the proud and arrogant
who speak with contempt about the righteous.
19 How wonderful are the good things
you keep for those who honor you!
Everyone knows how good you are,
how securely you protect those who trust you.
20 You hide them in the safety of your presence
from the plots of others;
in a safe shelter you hide them
from the insults of their enemies.
21 Praise the Lord!
How wonderfully he showed his love for me
when I was surrounded and attacked!
22 I was afraid and thought
that he had driven me out of his presence.
But he heard my cry,
when I called to him for help.
23 Love the Lord, all his faithful people.
The Lord protects the faithful,
but punishes the proud as they deserve.
24 Be strong, be courageous,
all you that hope in the Lord.
A Prayer for Help[a]
35 Oppose those who oppose me, Lord,
and fight those who fight against me!
2 Take your shield and armor
and come to my rescue.
3 Lift up your spear and war ax
against those who pursue me.
Promise that you will save me.
4 May those who try to kill me
be defeated and disgraced!
May those who plot against me
be turned back and confused!
5 May they be like straw blown by the wind
as the angel of the Lord pursues them!
6 May their path be dark and slippery
while the angel of the Lord strikes them down!
7 Without any reason they laid a trap for me
and dug a deep hole to catch me.
8 But destruction will catch them before they know it;
they will be caught in their own trap
and fall to their destruction!
9 Then I will be glad because of the Lord;
I will be happy because he saved me.
10 With all my heart I will say to the Lord,
“There is no one like you.
You protect the weak from the strong,
the poor from the oppressor.”
11 Evil people testify against me
and accuse me of crimes I know nothing about.
12 They pay me back evil for good,
and I sink in despair.
13 But when they were sick, I dressed in mourning;
I deprived myself of food;
I prayed with my head bowed low,
14 as I would pray for a friend or a brother.
I went around bent over in mourning,
as one who mourns for his mother.
15 But when I was in trouble, they were all glad
and gathered around to make fun of me;
strangers beat me
and kept striking me.
16 Like those who would mock a cripple,[b]
they glared at me with hate.
17 How much longer, Lord, will you just look on?
Rescue me from their attacks;
save my life from these lions!
18 Then I will thank you in the assembly of your people;
I will praise you before them all.
19 (A)Don't let my enemies, those liars,
gloat over my defeat.
Don't let those who hate me for no reason
smirk with delight over my sorrow.
20 They do not speak in a friendly way;
instead they invent all kinds of lies about peace-loving people.
21 They accuse me, shouting,
“We saw what you did!”
22 But you, O Lord, have seen this.
So don't be silent, Lord;
don't keep yourself far away!
23 Rouse yourself, O Lord, and defend me;
rise up, my God, and plead my cause.
24 You are righteous, O Lord, so declare me innocent;
don't let my enemies gloat over me.
25 Don't let them say to themselves,
“We are rid of him!
That's just what we wanted!”
26 May those who gloat over my suffering
be completely defeated and confused;
may those who claim to be better than I am
be covered with shame and disgrace.
27 May those who want to see me acquitted
shout for joy and say again and again,
“How great is the Lord!
He is pleased with the success of his servant.”
28 Then I will proclaim your righteousness,
and I will praise you all day long.
Two Baskets of Figs
24 (A)The Lord showed me two baskets of figs placed in front of the Temple. (This was after King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia had taken away Jehoiakim's son, King Jehoiachin of Judah, as a prisoner from Jerusalem to Babylonia, together with the leaders of Judah, the craftworkers, and the skilled workers.) 2 The first basket contained good figs, those that ripen early; the other one contained bad figs, too bad to eat. 3 Then the Lord said to me, “Jeremiah, what do you see?”
I answered, “Figs. The good ones are very good, and the bad ones are very bad, too bad to eat.”
4 So the Lord said to me, 5 “I, the Lord, the God of Israel, consider that the people who were taken away to Babylonia are like these good figs, and I will treat them with kindness. 6 I will watch over them and bring them back to this land. I will build them up and not tear them down; I will plant them and not pull them up. 7 I will give them the desire to know that I am the Lord. Then they will be my people, and I will be their God, because they will return to me with all their heart.
8 “As for King Zedekiah of Judah, the politicians around him, and the rest of the people of Jerusalem who have stayed in this land or moved to Egypt—I, the Lord, will treat them all like these figs that are too bad to be eaten. 9 I will bring such a disaster on them that all the nations of the world will be terrified. People will make fun of them, make jokes about them, ridicule them, and use their name as a curse everywhere I scatter them. 10 I will bring war, starvation, and disease on them until there is not one of them left in the land that I gave to them and their ancestors.”
God's Anger and Mercy
19 But one of you will say to me, “If this is so, how can God find fault with anyone? Who can resist God's will?” 20 (A)But who are you, my friend, to talk back to God? A clay pot does not ask the man who made it, “Why did you make me like this?” 21 (B)After all, the man who makes the pots has the right to use the clay as he wishes, and to make two pots from the same lump of clay, one for special occasions and the other for ordinary use.
22 (C)And the same is true of what God has done. He wanted to show his anger and to make his power known. But he was very patient in enduring those who were the objects of his anger, who were doomed to destruction. 23 And he also wanted to reveal his abundant glory, which was poured out on us who are the objects of his mercy, those of us whom he has prepared to receive his glory. 24 For we are the people he called, not only from among the Jews but also from among the Gentiles. 25 (D)This is what he says in the book of Hosea:
“The people who were not mine
I will call ‘My People.’
The nation that I did not love
I will call ‘My Beloved.’
26 (E)And in the very place where they were told, ‘You are not my people,’
there they will be called the children of the living God.”
27 (F)And Isaiah exclaims about Israel: “Even if the people of Israel are as many as the grains of sand by the sea, yet only a few of them will be saved; 28 for the Lord will quickly settle his full account with the world.” 29 (G)It is as Isaiah had said before, “If the Lord Almighty had not left us some descendants, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah.”
Israel and the Gospel
30 So we say that the Gentiles, who were not trying to put themselves right with God, were put right with him through faith; 31 while God's people, who were seeking a law that would put them right with God, did not find it. 32 And why not? Because they did not depend on faith but on what they did. And so they stumbled over the “stumbling stone” 33 (H)that the scripture speaks of:
“Look, I place in Zion a stone
that will make people stumble,
a rock that will make them fall.
But whoever believes in him will not be disappointed.”
Jesus Heals a Man Born Blind
9 As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man who had been born blind. 2 His disciples asked him, “Teacher, whose sin caused him to be born blind? Was it his own or his parents' sin?”
3 Jesus answered, “His blindness has nothing to do with his sins or his parents' sins. He is blind so that God's power might be seen at work in him. 4 As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me; night is coming when no one can work. 5 (A)While I am in the world, I am the light for the world.”
6 After he said this, Jesus spat on the ground and made some mud with the spittle; he rubbed the mud on the man's eyes 7 and told him, “Go and wash your face in the Pool of Siloam.” (This name means “Sent.”) So the man went, washed his face, and came back seeing.
8 His neighbors, then, and the people who had seen him begging before this, asked, “Isn't this the man who used to sit and beg?”
9 Some said, “He is the one,” but others said, “No he isn't; he just looks like him.”
So the man himself said, “I am the man.”
10 “How is it that you can now see?” they asked him.
11 He answered, “The man called Jesus made some mud, rubbed it on my eyes, and told me to go to Siloam and wash my face. So I went, and as soon as I washed, I could see.”
12 “Where is he?” they asked.
“I don't know,” he answered.
The Pharisees Investigate the Healing
13 Then they took to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. 14 The day that Jesus made the mud and cured him of his blindness was a Sabbath. 15 The Pharisees, then, asked the man again how he had received his sight. He told them, “He put some mud on my eyes; I washed my face, and now I can see.”
16 Some of the Pharisees said, “The man who did this cannot be from God, for he does not obey the Sabbath law.”
Others, however, said, “How could a man who is a sinner perform such miracles as these?” And there was a division among them.
17 So the Pharisees asked the man once more, “You say he cured you of your blindness—well, what do you say about him?”
“He is a prophet,” the man answered.
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.