Book of Common Prayer
David wrote this song for the music leader. Use special music.
Trust God for help
69 Please rescue me, God,
because the deep water has come up to my neck.
2 I will soon sink into deep mud.
There is no safe place to put my feet.
I am now in deep water,
and the floods pour over me.
3 I have shouted so much for help
that I am tired and weak.
My mouth is so dry that it hurts.
I have looked so long for help from you, my God,
that my eyes have become weak.
4 Very many people hate me with no good reason.
They are more than the number of hairs on my head!
My enemies are too strong for me.
They want to destroy me with their lies.
They make me give back to them
things that I did not take from them!
5 You know, God, that I do foolish things.
I cannot hide my sins from you.
6 My Lord, Almighty Lord, Israel's God,
do not let anyone who trusts you
become ashamed because of me.
Do not let anyone who serves you
become ashamed because of me.
7 Because I belong to you,
people insult me.
They make me feel ashamed.
8 I have become like a stranger to my brothers.
I am like a foreigner to my family.
9 My love for your house burns inside me like a fire.
Anybody who insults you,
is also insulting me!
10 When I weep and I stop eating food,
it causes people to insult me.
11 When I wear rough clothes to show that I am sad,
people laugh at me.
12 People who sit at the city gate talk about me.[a]
People who are drunk make songs
to sing about me.
13 But as for me, Lord,
I continue to pray to you.
Please answer me at the right time.
Be kind to me, God,
because of your faithful love.
Save me, as you have promised to do.
14 Save me out of the mud
and do not let me sink down into it.
Rescue me from the people that hate me.
Save me from the deep water.
15 Do not let the floods pour over me.
Do not let the deep sea cause me to drown.
Do not let me fall into the deep hole of death.
16 Please answer me, Lord,
because your faithful love is great.
Turn to hear me,
because you are so very kind.
17 Do not turn away from me, your servant.
I am in great trouble,
so please answer me very soon.
18 Come very near to me,
and make me safe.
Rescue me from my enemies.
19 God, you know that people are insulting me.
They laugh at me
to make me feel ashamed.
You can see what all my enemies are doing.
20 When they insult me,
it makes me very upset.
I feel helpless.
I hoped that someone would be kind and help me,
but there was nobody.
I wanted someone to comfort me,
but I did not find anyone.
21 Instead, my enemies put poison in my food.
When I was thirsty,
they gave me vinegar to drink.[b]
22 Please God, cause their feasts to become a trap for them.
Let it bring trouble to them and their friends.
23 Let their eyes be in the dark
so that they cannot see.
Let their bodies become weak.
24 Yes, punish them,
because you are so angry with them!
25 Let their homes become empty,
so that nobody lives in them any more.
26 Do this, because they chase after
the people that you have already punished.
They talk about the pain
of the people that you have hurt.
27 Make a note of all their sins.
Do not ever forgive them,
so that they are righteous.
28 Remove their names from the book of living people.
Do not write their names
on the list of righteous people.
29 But I have pain in my body
and trouble in my mind.
God, rescue me and keep me safe!
30 I will sing to praise God's name!
I will thank him because he is great!
31 That will please the Lord more
than if I offer him an ox,
or a great bull with horns.[c]
32 When humble people see it,
they will be very happy.
People who want to serve God
will become strong in their lives.
33 For the Lord listens to the prayers of poor people.
He does not forget to help his people
when they are prisoners.
34 Heaven and earth should praise him!
The seas and everything that lives in them
should praise him!
35 For God will rescue Zion's people.
He will build again Judah's cities.
Then his people will live there.
The land will belong to them again.
36 Then the descendants of his servants
will have the land for themselves.
The people who love God
will live there safely.
This is a psalm that Asaph wrote.
God has helped me to understand[a]
73 God is truly good to the people of Israel,
to people who want to serve him honestly.
2 But this is what happened to me:
I nearly slipped and fell over.
I could no longer stand properly.
3 When I saw that wicked people had plenty of things,
I was jealous of those proud people.
4 Their bodies are fat and strong,
and they feel no pain in their lives.
5 They do not have trouble like other people.
They seem to have no problems.
6 Their pride is like their necklace.
They like to be cruel,
as they like to wear clothes.
7 Their greedy eyes lead them into sin.
Their minds think of evil things to do.
8 They laugh at people
and they say bad things about them.
They proudly speak about cruel things
that they want to do to people.
9 They think that they rule in heaven,
as well as on the earth!
10 As a result, God's people become confused,
and they listen to them.
They think that everything is true
that those wicked people say.[b]
11 They say, ‘Does God really know what we do?
Does the Most High God know everything?’
12 Take a good look,
and see how wicked those people are!
They have no troubles,
and they become richer and richer.
13 I decided that I had tried to do what is right,
but it did not help me at all!
I had refused to do anything wrong,
for no good reason!
14 I had trouble each and every day.
Punishment came to me every morning!
15 If I had spoken aloud things like that,
I would have turned against your own people.
16 When I thought about all this,
it was so hard for me to understand.
17 But I went into your temple, God.
Then I understood what would happen
to wicked people in the end.
18 Yes, I realized that they are in a dangerous place,
where they will easily slip.
You will cause them to fall down to their death.
19 It will take just a moment to destroy them!
Great fear will sweep them away!
20 They will completely disappear,
like a dream disappears after you wake up.
Lord, when you decide to do something,
you will forget that they were there!
21 I was very upset,
and my thoughts were confused.
22 I was stupid,
and I did not understand you properly.
I was no better than an animal.
23 But I am always near to you.
You hold my right hand,
as my guide.
24 You teach me the right way to go,
and you will lead me to glory.[c]
25 You are the only one in heaven or on earth
that I need to help me.
You are the only one that I want.
26 My body and my mind may become weak,
but God will always keep me safe and strong.
27 Those people who stay far away from you will die.
You destroy everybody who turns away from you.
28 But as for me, it is good for me to stay near to God.
I have gone to the Almighty Lord
as the place where I can be safe.
I will tell people about the great things that you have done.
Ezra praises God
27 I praise the Lord, the God that our ancestors worshipped. He has caused the king to give honour to him. He made the king decide to make the Lord's temple in Jerusalem very great. 28 The Lord has been kind to me, so that the king, his helpers and his powerful officers have helped me. Because the Lord my God has been with me, he has helped me to be strong. I have been able to bring many of the leaders of Israel to Jerusalem with me.
21 We were all waiting by the Ahava river. I told the people not to eat any food, so that we could pray to God for help. We asked him to keep us safe on the journey, with our children and all our things. 22 I was ashamed to ask the king to send his soldiers with us to keep us safe. He could have sent soldiers who rode on horses with us, or other soldiers. But we had said to the king, ‘Our God helps people who trust him and he keeps them safe. But he is very angry with people who turn away from him and he punishes them.’
23 So we ate no food and we prayed to our God about this. He answered our prayers.
24 I chose 12 of the most important priests to do an important job, as well as Sherebiah, Hashabiah and ten of their brothers. 25 I told them to take care of the valuable things that we had received for the temple of our God. These were silver and gold things and other special things that the king, his helpers and his officers had given to us. Israelite people who were living in Babylonia had also given us valuable things for the temple. I weighed all these things. 26 I weighed 20,000 kilograms of silver and 3,500 kilograms of things made from silver. I weighed 3,500 kilograms of gold 27 and 20 gold bowls that weighed 8.5 kilograms. I also gave to them two beautiful bowls made from bronze. They shone brightly and they were as valuable as gold.
28 I said to the men, ‘Like these special things, you people are also special. You all belong to the Lord. People have chosen to give the silver and gold to the Lord, the God that your ancestors served. 29 So you must be careful to keep them safe until you reach Jerusalem. When you get there, you must weigh them again. Do that in front of the leaders of the priests, the Levites and the leaders of Israelite families. Then they should store them in the rooms of the temple.’
30 Then they gave the silver, the gold and the other valuable things to the priests and the Levites. They would take them to the temple of our God in Jerusalem.
31 We began our journey from the Ahava river on the 12th day of the first month. We left there to go to Jerusalem. Our God kept us safe on the journey. No enemies attacked us and nobody robbed us on the way. 32 So we arrived safely in Jerusalem. We rested there for three days.
33 On the fourth day, we went to the house of our God. Then we weighed the silver, the gold and the other valuable things there. We gave them to Meremoth, the son of Uriah the priest. Phinehas's son, Eleazar was with him. Jeshua's son, Jozabad, and Binnui's son, Noadiah, were also there. They were Levites. 34 They weighed and counted everything carefully. They wrote everything in a list as they weighed it.
35 All the people who had returned from Babylon made burnt offerings as sacrifices to Israel's God. They offered to the Lord 12 bulls on behalf of all Israel. They also offered 96 male sheep and 77 lambs. They killed 12 male goats as a sin offering. They gave all these to the Lord as burnt offerings. 36 They also gave the king's letter with its commands to his officers and rulers in the region west of the Euphrates river. The king's officers helped the Israelite people and the work of God's temple.
The seven angels with the last troubles
15 Then I saw another very wonderful thing in the sky.[a] I saw seven angels with seven terrible troubles to hurt people. They are the final troubles. When they have finished, God will stop being angry.
2 Then I saw what seemed to be a glass sea. Fire was mixed in it. I also saw people who were standing at the edge of the glass sea. Those people had fought against the wild animal and they had won. They had won against its image and the number that means its name. They had fought and they had won. God had given them harps. They held the harps to make music. 3 Now they sang the song of God's servant, Moses, and the Lamb's song.[b] They sang this:
‘Lord God with all power,
what you do is great and wonderful!
Everything that you do is completely fair and honest.
You are King of all nations of the world.
4 Everyone will respect and obey you, Lord.
They will say how great your name is,
because only you are completely good.
People from every nation have seen what you do.
You always do what is right.
So all people will come and stand in front of you,
and they will worship you.’
5 After this I looked again. I saw that God's house in heaven was open. That house is like God's tent, where he lived among his people in the wilderness.[c] 6 The seven angels with the seven terrible troubles then came out of God's house. They were wearing clean, bright clothes that were made from linen. They had gold belts around the top part of their bodies. 7 Then one of the four beings that were alive gave seven gold bowls to the seven angels. God had poured his anger into the bowls. He is the God who is alive for ever. 8 Then God's house in heaven became full of smoke, which showed God's great glory and his power. As a result, nobody could go into God's house until the angels had finished sending the seven terrible troubles.
Jesus gives food to 5,000 men and their families
13 Jesus heard about what had happened to John. After that, he went away from that place. He sailed in a boat to a quiet place where he could be alone. But the crowd heard where Jesus had gone. So they left their towns and they went on land to the place where he was going. 14 Jesus got out of the boat. He saw a large crowd there on the shore. He felt sorry for them. There were sick people among them and he made them well again.
15 When it was almost evening, Jesus' disciples came to speak to him. They said to him, ‘We are in a place where there are no houses. It will soon be dark. Send the crowd away now, so that they can go to the villages near here. Then they can buy some food for themselves to eat.’
16 Jesus said to them, ‘The people do not need to go away. You should give them some food to eat.’
17 But the disciples said, ‘We only have five loaves of bread and two fish.’
18 ‘Bring the bread and fish here to me,’ Jesus said. 19 Then he said to the large crowd, ‘Sit down on the grass.’ He took the five loaves of bread and the two fish. He looked up to heaven and he thanked God for the bread and the fish. Then he broke the bread into pieces. He gave the pieces of bread to his disciples, and they gave them to the crowd. 20 Then everybody ate. They all had enough food and they were not hungry any more. Then the disciples picked up all the bits of food that people had not eaten. They filled 12 baskets with little bits of bread and fish. 21 About 5,000 men ate the bread and fish. Women and children also ate it with them.[a]
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