Book of Common Prayer
33-34 In places where people are wicked,
God makes the streams and rivers become dry,
so that the land becomes a desert.
He makes good land
become a salty wilderness.
35 But for his people, he changes deserts
to become pools of water.
He makes springs of water in dry land.
36 He lets hungry people live there safely.
They can build a city for themselves.
37 They plant crops in their fields,
and they plant vines to grow grapes.
They have plenty of food to eat.
38 He blesses them,
so that they have many children.
Their animals also grow in number.
39 But they may become weak and few in number,
because of cruel enemies who give them trouble.
40 Then God causes the enemy's leaders to become ashamed.
He makes them travel on roads that go nowhere.
41 But for people who are poor and weak,
he rescues them from their trouble.
He gives them many children,
so that they have big families.
42 Good people see what God has done,
and it makes them happy.
Wicked people have nothing to say!
43 Wise people should think about these things.
They should understand the Lord's faithful love for his people.
This psalm is a song that David wrote.
A prayer for help[a]
108 God, I have decided to trust you always.
I will sing songs to praise you,
with all that I am.
2 I will pick up my harp and my lyre.
I will make music as the sun rises!
3 Lord, I will thank you in front of all the people.
I will sing to praise you,
so that all nations hear.
4 Your faithful love is great.
It is higher than the skies.
Your truth reaches beyond the clouds.
5 God, show how great you are,
high above the sky!
Let everybody on the earth see your glory.
6 Use your power to rescue us!
Answer our prayers!
Then the people that you love will be safe.
7 God has spoken from his holy place![b]
He has promised:
‘I will show my power!
I will make Shechem into separate pieces.
I will measure Succoth Valley.
8 Gilead belongs to me,
and so does Manasseh.
Ephraim is like my helmet for war.
Judah has the authority of my royal sceptre.[c]
9 But Moab is the place where I wash my hands.
Edom is my servant.
I can throw my shoes at him!
I will shout aloud,
because I have won against the Philistines.’[d]
10 Who will lead me into the strong city?
Who will take me to fight and win against Edom?[e]
11 God, have you really turned against us?
Will you not lead our armies into battle?
12 Help us to fight against our enemies,
because help from men is useless!
13 With God's help, we will win!
He will beat down our enemies for us.
Praise the Lord![a]
33 You righteous people,
sing to praise the Lord,
and be happy!
It is right for good, honest people to do that.
2 Pick up your harp
and praise the Lord!
Make music for him
with a lyre that has ten strings.
3 Sing to him a new song!
Make beautiful music,
as you sing aloud to praise him.
4 Yes! The Lord's message is true.
We can always trust him to do what is right.
5 He loves everything that is right and fair.
The world is full of his faithful love.
6 The word of the Lord made the heavens.
When he spoke,
all the stars in the sky appeared.
7 He put the water of the sea together in a heap.
He made the deep seas stay in their right places.
8 Everyone who lives on the earth should respect the Lord.
They should bend down to worship him.
9 The Lord spoke,
and the world began!
He spoke his command,
and everything became fixed in its place.[b]
10 Nations decide what they want to do,
but the Lord causes their plans to be useless.
11 But whatever the Lord decides to do
will always happen.
His thoughts will not change
from one century to the next.
12 The Lord blesses the nation
that has him as their God.
He has chosen them to belong to him,
as his own special people.
13 The Lord looks down from heaven.
He sees every man, woman and child.
14 From the place where he lives,
he watches everyone that lives on the earth.
15 He made each person and all their thoughts.
He knows everything that they do.
16 A great army will not save their king.
A soldier does not stay alive because he is strong.
17 In war, do not hope that even a strong horse will help you to win.
You can not trust it to save you.
18 Remember, the Lord takes care of people who respect him.
Those people trust him for his faithful love.
19 They trust him to keep them safe from death,
and to keep them alive during a time of famine.
20 Yes! We will trust the Lord to come and help us.
He is our helper who keeps us safe,
like a soldier's shield.
21 We are happy because he loves us.
We trust in his holy name.
22 Lord, help us to know your faithful love,
because we are trusting in you.
21 This is the Lord's reply. The Lord says this about King Sennacherib:
“The holy people of Zion laugh at you!
They think that you are useless.
Yes, the people of Jerusalem shake their heads
as you run away.
22 Who do you think it is that you have insulted?
Who have you shouted at?
Who have you looked at so proudly?
The answer is the Holy God of Israel!
23 You have sent your servants
to insult the Lord God.
You have said, ‘I have taken all my chariots
and I have gone up high mountains,
the highest mountains in Lebanon.
I have cut down its tall cedar trees,
and I have cut down its best pine trees.
I went up to its highest places,
and I went far into its forests.
24 I dug wells in other countries,
and they gave me water to drink.
My army marched through all the rivers in Egypt,
and the rivers became dry.’
25 You said that, but now listen to this![a]
You must surely have heard it already.
I decided what to do a long time ago!
Now I am causing it to happen.
I decided that you would destroy strong cities
so that they became heaps of stones.
26 The people of those cities have no power.
They are afraid and they are confused.
They are like plants in a field,
that cannot live for a long time.
They are like fresh green grass,
or grass that grows on the roof of a house.
When a hot wind blows on them,
it burns them and they die.
27 I know everything about you.
I know where you live.
I know when you go out.
And I know when you return home.
I know how much you shout against me,
when you are angry.
28 Yes, you do shout at me!
And I have heard all your proud noise.
So I will put my hook in your nose.
I will tie a rope to your mouth.
Then I will pull you back home
by the same way that you came.”
29 King Hezekiah, this is how you will know that I have spoken a true message from the Lord.[b] This year, you will eat crops that grow by themselves. And next year you will eat what grows from the same seeds. But in the third year you will plant seeds for yourselves, and they will give you a harvest of crops. You will plant vines again and you will eat grapes from them.
30 The people who remain in Judah will be like strong plants that put their roots down into the ground. Their branches will give lots of fruit.
31 A small number of people will still be alive in Jerusalem. They will leave Mount Zion and they will go to other places. The great love that the Lord Almighty has for his people will cause that to happen!
32 This is what the Lord says about the king of Assyria:
“His army will not come into this city.
His soldiers will not shoot any arrows here.
They will not attack the city as they hold their shields.
They will not build heaps of earth against the city's walls.
33 No! The king will return home by the way that he came.
He will not come into this city.”
That is what the Lord says.
34 “I will make this city safe and I will rescue it.
I will do that to show that I am great.
I promised my servant David that I would do it. So I will do it.” ’
35 That night, the Lord's angel went to the camp of the Assyrian army. He killed 185,000 of their soldiers. When people got up in the morning, they saw all those dead bodies! 36 So King Sennacherib of Assyria took his army away. He returned to Assyria and he lived in Nineveh.
Idols
10 My Christian friends, remember what happened to our Israelite ancestors. Moses led them out of Egypt long ago. While they followed Moses, they all walked under the same cloud. All of them walked across the Red Sea.[a] 2 It is like God baptized all of them in the cloud and in the sea. In that way, they became people who followed Moses. 3 All our ancestors ate the same spiritual food.[b] 4 All of them drank the same spiritual drink. They drank water from the spiritual rock that went with them. Christ was that rock.[c] 5 They all received the same help from God, but most of them did not please God. God caused most of them to die in the wilderness.[d]
6 We must learn from those things that happened to our ancestors. We must not want to do very bad things, like they did. 7 Do not worship idols, as some of them did. The Bible says: ‘The people sat down to eat and to drink. After that, they got up from their meal and they danced.’[e]
8 Nor must we ever have sex in wrong ways. Some of our ancestors did that, and 23,000 of them died in one day as a result.[f]
9 Nor must we do bad things to see whether the Lord will punish us. Some of our ancestors did that, and God sent snakes to destroy them.[g]
10 Do not complain against God. Some of our ancestors spoke like that, and God sent an angel of death to kill them.[h]
11 All these things happened to our ancestors so that we would learn from them. They are written in the Bible to teach us important lessons. We are people who live at a time when all things will become complete.
12 If you think that you are standing strongly, be careful! Do not fall down! 13 You may often want to do wrong things. The things that are difficult for you are difficult for other people too. Remember that God is always there to help you. He will not let any bad thing be too difficult for you. He will help you to stand against it. When you want to do something wrong, God will make you strong in your spirit. He will show you a way out, so that you do not do anything wrong.
18 One day, Jesus saw a large crowd of people around him. So he told his disciples, ‘We should go across the lake to the other side.’ 19 A teacher of God's Law came to Jesus and said to him, ‘Teacher, I will go with you everywhere that you go.’ 20 Jesus replied, ‘Wild animals and birds have their own places to live. But I, the Son of Man, have no place of my own to lie down and rest.’
21 Another man who was one of Jesus' disciples said to him, ‘Sir, I want to come with you. But first, let me go home and bury my father. Then I will come with you.’ 22 Jesus said to him, ‘No! You must come with me now. Let those people who are dead themselves bury their own dead people.’[a]
Jesus stops a storm
23 Then Jesus got into a boat. His disciples also went with him. 24 Immediately a great storm began to blow across the lake. Water began to go into the boat and fill it. Jesus was sleeping. 25 The disciples went to him and they woke him. ‘Master, save us!’ they said. ‘We will die here in the water!’ 26 Jesus said to them, ‘You should not be so afraid. You should trust me more than you do!’ Then he stood up and he spoke strongly to the wind and the water. ‘Stop!’ he said. Then the wind and the water became quiet again.
27 The disciples were very surprised. They asked each other, ‘What kind of man is this? Even the wind and the water obey him!’
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