Book of Common Prayer
This is a song that David wrote for the music leader.
We trust God to help us[a]
20 May the Lord answer you
when you are in trouble and you call to him for help.
May Israel's great God keep you safe.
2 He will send help to you from his holy place,
from his temple in Zion.
3 He will remember the gifts that you have offered to him.
He will accept your burnt offerings
Selah
4 May God give to you
all the things that you really want.
He will help you to do everything that you want to do.
5 Then we will be happy and we will shout aloud
when you win against your enemies.
We will wave our flags to praise our God.
Yes, I pray that the Lord will do for you
everything that you ask him to do.
6 Now I know that the Lord will save
the king that he has chosen.
God will agree to help him from his holy place in heaven.
God will use his great power to make his king safe.
7 Some people hope that their chariots will keep them safe.
Other people trust their horses to save them.
But we will trust in the name of the Lord our God.
8 Those people will fall down,
and they will not get up again.
But we will get up and stand again,
and we will be strong.
9 Lord, help the king to win against his enemies!
Please answer us when we ask you for help.
This is a song that David wrote for the music leader.
We thank God for his help[b]
21 Lord, the king is happy,
because you help him with your great strength.
You have helped him to win against his enemies,
so he is very happy.[c]
2 You have given to him all the things
that he really wanted.
When he asked for them,
you have not refused to give them to him.
Selah.
3 You came to him,
and you blessed him with many good things:
You put a crown on his head.
It was made from the best gold.
4 He asked you to keep his life safe,
and you gave to him a long life.
His descendants will continue for ever.
5 People praise him,
because you have helped him to win against his enemies.
You have caused him to rule as a great king.
6 You will continue to bless him for ever.
Because you are very near to him,
he is very happy.
7 The king trusts in the Lord.
Because of the Most High God's faithful love,
the king will never fail.
8 You will use your strong power
to take hold of your enemies.[d]
You will catch everybody that hates you.
9 When you come out to fight against them,
you will destroy them like a hot fire.
The Lord destroys them,
because you are angry with them.
10 You will remove your enemies' children from the earth.
They will no longer have any descendants.
11 They decided to hurt you.
They thought how they would do that.
But they could not do anything bad against you.
12 No! You shoot your arrows at them,
so that they turn round and they run away!
13 Get up, Lord, and show your strength!
We will sing to praise you
because you have great power.
David wrote this psalm.
The Lord's great King[a]
110 The Lord God said to my Lord,[b]
‘Sit at my right side[c] until I win against your enemies.
Then you will be able to put your feet on them.’
2 The Lord will give you great authority,
as you rule from Zion.[d]
You will rule over all your enemies
that are round you.
3 When you go to fight your enemies,
your people will be happy to fight beside you.
As the sun rises on the day of battle,
your young men will be there,
on the hills round Zion.[e]
4 The Lord has made a strong promise.
He will not change it.
He has promised, ‘You will be a priest for ever,
in the same way that Melchizedek was my priest.’[f]
5 The Lord is standing at your right side.
When he becomes angry,
he will knock down kings!
6 He will punish the nations,
so that dead bodies cover the ground.
He will destroy kings everywhere on the earth.
7 He will drink from a stream at the side of the road.
With new strength, he will lift up his head.
God saved me from death[a]
116 I love the Lord,
because he heard me when I called to him.
2 He listened carefully to me.
When I need help, I will always pray to him,
for as long as I live.
3 The danger of death was very near to me.
I became afraid of the deep hole of death.
I was very sad and upset.
4 Then I called out to the Lord.
I said, ‘Lord, please save my life!’
5 The Lord is kind and fair.
Yes, our God is very kind.
6 The Lord takes care of weak people.
I was in danger of death,
and he saved me!
7 So now I know that I am safe again.
The Lord has been very good to me.
8 Yes, Lord, you saved me from death!
Because of that, my eyes no longer weep,
and I do not fall down to the ground.
9 Now I will serve the Lord
here in this world where people live.
10 I trusted in the Lord
even when I said, ‘I have much pain.’
11 I was confused and I said,
‘Everybody tells lies.’
12 The Lord has done many kind things to help me.
What can I give back to him?
13 I will offer a cup of wine to the Lord,
to thank him because he saved me!
I will worship him.
14 I will give to the Lord
everything that I have promised.
I will do that when all his people meet together.
15 The Lord is sad when one of his servants dies,
because their lives are valuable to him.
16 Lord, I really am your servant.
I am like a slave in your house.
You have saved me from death.
17 I will offer to you a special sacrifice to say ‘thank you’.
I will worship you as Lord.
18 I will give to the Lord
everything that I have promised.
I will do that when all his people meet together,
19 in the yard of the Lord's temple.
Yes, I will worship you in your temple in Jerusalem.
Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord![b]
117 All you nations in the world,
praise the Lord!
People from every place,
praise him!
2 The Lord's faithful love for us is very strong.
He will always do what he has promised.
Praise the Lord!
God saves Noah
9 This is the report about Noah and his family.
Noah was a good man. He was the only person at that time who lived in a completely right way. He stayed near to God in his life. 10 Noah became the father of Shem, Ham and Japheth.
11 God saw that everything on the earth had become spoiled. Everywhere, people were attacking each other. 12 God saw how much the earth had become spoiled. Everyone was doing bad things. 13 God said to Noah, ‘I will destroy everyone. That is what I have decided to do. Everywhere on the earth, people are attacking each other. Now I will destroy the people and also the earth. 14 So make a ship for yourself. Use wood from cypress trees to make it.[a] The ship must have rooms in it. Cover the inside and the outside of the ship with tar.[b]
15 This is how you will build the ship: It must be 150 metres long, 25 metres wide and 15 metres high.
16 Make a roof for the ship. Leave a space 45 centimetres high all round under the roof. Put a door in the side of the ship. Inside the ship, make three floors above each other.
17 I will cover the earth with deep water. I will destroy all living things, wherever they live. Everything that breathes will die. 18 But I will make a covenant with you, Noah. You will go into the ship. You will take your wife with you, and also your three sons and their wives. 19 You must also take two of every different kind of animal into the ship. One will be male and the other will be female. Then they will stay alive with you. 20 Bring two of every different kind of bird, two of every different animal and two of every different living thing that moves along the ground. All these will come to you. You will take care of them so that they will stay alive. 21 You must also take every different kind of food. That will be food for you and food for the animals.’
22 Noah obeyed God. He did everything that God had told him to do.
God's special place of rest
4 God promised his people that they could go to his special place of rest. That promise is still true for us today. So we must be very careful. Do not fail to arrive in that place. We certainly do not want that to happen. 2 We have heard God's good news, just like God's people in the wilderness heard his message. But that message did not help them, because they did not believe it. They did not trust God, like those who obeyed him. 3 But those of us who trust God do enjoy his special place of rest. This is what God said:
‘Because I was very angry with them, I promised this:
“They will never arrive in my special place of rest.” ’[a]
God said that, even though he had finished his work when he made the world. 4 In the Bible God has spoken about the seventh day like this:
‘God rested from all his work on the seventh day.’[b]
5 As we have already seen, God said something later about his rest:
‘They will never arrive in my special place of rest.’
6 So we see that there is still a chance for people to go to God's place of rest. But those people who first heard God's message in the wilderness refused to obey him. As a result, they did not arrive in his special place of rest. 7 So God chose another time for people to go to his place of rest. He called it ‘Today’. A long time after Moses, David spoke God's message. As we have already seen, he said:
‘You must listen when you hear God speak today.
Do not refuse to obey him.’
8 This shows that Joshua did not bring God's people to the place where they could rest. Later, God had to speak again about another day of rest. 9 So we see this: God still has a place ready for his people, where they can rest. They will rest as God rested on the seventh day. 10 When God made the world and everything, he rested after he had finished his work. It is the same for everyone who goes to God's place of rest. They too will rest. They will no longer need to work.[c]
11 So we must do everything possible to arrive in God's special place of rest. God's people in the wilderness did not obey him. We must not be like them. If we do not obey God, we also will fail to arrive in that place.
12 So be careful! God's message to us is alive and powerful. It is like a sword that has two sharp edges. Even more than a sword, God's message goes very deep into us. It cuts between our soul and our spirit. It is like a sharp knife that can cut deep into our body between our bones. God's message shows what we are really thinking. It shows what we really want. 13 There is nothing in the whole world that can hide from God. He sees everything clearly and he knows everything. We will have to explain to him everything that we have done during our lives.
13 It was almost time for the Jewish Passover festival. So Jesus went to Jerusalem.[a] 14 He went into the yard of the temple. There he found people who were selling cows, sheep and doves. Other people were sitting at tables to change coins for people. 15 So Jesus made a whip from some pieces of rope. Then he made all the people leave the temple quickly, with the sheep and the cows. He threw onto the ground all the coins of the men who changed money. He turned their tables over. 16 He said to the people who sold birds, ‘Take them out of here! Do not make my Father's house into a market!’ 17 His disciples remembered what it says in the Bible: ‘My love for your house burns inside me like a fire.’[b]
18 Then the Jews asked Jesus, ‘What is your authority to do this? Do a miracle to show us that you really do have authority.’ 19 Jesus answered them, ‘If you destroy this house of God, I will build it up again in three days.’ 20 The Jews replied, ‘People have worked for 46 years to build this house. But you say that you will build it again in three days!’ 21 But the house that Jesus was speaking about was his own body. 22 The disciples remembered this when Jesus had become alive again after his death. They remembered that he had said this. Then they believed what the Bible taught. They also believed the words that Jesus had spoken.
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