Book of Common Prayer
A Prayer for Guidance and Protection[a]
25 To you, O Lord, I offer my prayer;
2 in you, my God, I trust.
Save me from the shame of defeat;
don't let my enemies gloat over me!
3 Defeat does not come to those who trust in you,
but to those who are quick to rebel against you.
4 Teach me your ways, O Lord;
make them known to me.
5 Teach me to live according to your truth,
for you are my God, who saves me.
I always trust in you.
6 Remember, O Lord, your kindness and constant love
which you have shown from long ago.
7 Forgive the sins and errors of my youth.
In your constant love and goodness,
remember me, Lord!
8 Because the Lord is righteous and good,
he teaches sinners the path they should follow.
9 He leads the humble in the right way
and teaches them his will.
10 With faithfulness and love he leads
all who keep his covenant and obey his commands.
11 Keep your promise, Lord, and forgive my sins,
for they are many.
12 Those who have reverence for the Lord
will learn from him the path they should follow.
13 They will always be prosperous,
and their children will possess the land.
14 The Lord is the friend of those who obey him
and he affirms his covenant with them.
15 I look to the Lord for help at all times,
and he rescues me from danger.
16 Turn to me, Lord, and be merciful to me,
because I am lonely and weak.
17 Relieve me of my worries
and save me from all my troubles.
18 Consider my distress and suffering
and forgive all my sins.
19 See how many enemies I have;
see how much they hate me.
20 Protect me and save me;
keep me from defeat.
I come to you for safety.
21 May my goodness and honesty preserve me,
because I trust in you.
22 From all their troubles, O God,
save your people Israel!
Thanksgiving to God for His Justice[a]
9 I will praise you, Lord, with all my heart;
I will tell of all the wonderful things you have done.
2 I will sing with joy because of you.
I will sing praise to you, Almighty God.
3 My enemies turn back when you appear;
they fall down and die.
4 You are fair and honest in your judgments,
and you have judged in my favor.
5 You have condemned the heathen
and destroyed the wicked;
they will be remembered no more.
6 Our enemies are finished forever;
you have destroyed their cities,
and they are completely forgotten.
7 But the Lord is king forever;
he has set up his throne for judgment.
8 He rules the world with righteousness;
he judges the nations with justice.
9 The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed,
a place of safety in times of trouble.
10 Those who know you, Lord, will trust you;
you do not abandon anyone who comes to you.
11 Sing praise to the Lord, who rules in Zion!
Tell every nation what he has done!
12 God remembers those who suffer;
he does not forget their cry,
and he punishes those who wrong them.
13 (A)Be merciful to me, O Lord!
See the sufferings my enemies cause me!
Rescue me from death, O Lord,
14 that I may stand before the people of Jerusalem
and tell them all the things for which I praise you.
I will rejoice because you saved me.
15 The heathen have dug a pit and fallen in;
they have been caught in their own trap.
16 The Lord has revealed himself by his righteous judgments,
and the wicked are trapped by their own deeds.
17 Death is the destiny of all the wicked,
of all those who reject God.
18 The needy will not always be neglected;
the hope of the poor will not be crushed forever.
19 Come, Lord! Do not let anyone defy you!
Bring the heathen before you
and pronounce judgment on them.
20 Make them afraid, O Lord;
make them know that they are only mortal beings.
What God Requires[a]
15 Lord, who may enter your Temple?
Who may worship on Zion, your sacred hill?[b]
2 Those who obey God in everything
and always do what is right,
whose words are true and sincere,
3 and who do not slander others.
They do no wrong to their friends
nor spread rumors about their neighbors.
4 They despise those whom God rejects,
but honor those who obey the Lord.
They always do what they promise,
no matter how much it may cost.
5 They make loans without charging interest
and cannot be bribed to testify against the innocent.
Whoever does these things will always be secure.
6 After forty days Noah opened a window 7 and sent out a raven. It did not come back, but kept flying around until the water was completely gone. 8 Meanwhile, Noah sent out a dove to see if the water had gone down, 9 but since the water still covered all the land, the dove did not find a place to light. It flew back to the boat, and Noah reached out and took it in. 10 He waited another seven days and sent out the dove again. 11 It returned to him in the evening with a fresh olive leaf in its beak. So Noah knew that the water had gone down. 12 Then he waited another seven days and sent out the dove once more; this time it did not come back.
13 When Noah was 601 years old, on the first day of the first month, the water was gone. Noah removed the covering of the boat, looked around, and saw that the ground was getting dry. 14 By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry.
15 God said to Noah, 16 “Go out of the boat with your wife, your sons, and their wives. 17 Take all the birds and animals out with you, so that they may reproduce and spread over all the earth.” 18 So Noah went out of the boat with his wife, his sons, and their wives. 19 All the animals and birds went out of the boat in groups of their own kind.
Noah Offers a Sacrifice
20 Noah built an altar to the Lord; he took one of each kind of ritually clean animal and bird, and burned them whole as a sacrifice on the altar. 21 The odor of the sacrifice pleased the Lord, and he said to himself, “Never again will I put the earth under a curse because of what people do; I know that from the time they are young their thoughts are evil. Never again will I destroy all living beings, as I have done this time. 22 As long as the world exists, there will be a time for planting and a time for harvest. There will always be cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night.”
Jesus the Great High Priest
14 Let us, then, hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we have a great High Priest who has gone into the very presence of God—Jesus, the Son of God. 15 Our High Priest is not one who cannot feel sympathy for our weaknesses. On the contrary, we have a High Priest who was tempted in every way that we are, but did not sin. 16 Let us have confidence, then, and approach God's throne, where there is grace. There we will receive mercy and find grace to help us just when we need it.
5 Every high priest is chosen from his fellow-men and appointed to serve God on their behalf, to offer sacrifices and offerings for sins. 2 Since he himself is weak in many ways, he is able to be gentle with those who are ignorant and make mistakes. 3 (A)And because he is himself weak, he must offer sacrifices not only for the sins of the people but also for his own sins. 4 (B)No one chooses for himself the honor of being a high priest. It is only by God's call that a man is made a high priest—just as Aaron was.
5 (C)In the same way, Christ did not take upon himself the honor of being a high priest. Instead, God said to him,
Jesus' Knowledge of Human Nature
23 While Jesus was in Jerusalem during the Passover Festival, many believed in him as they saw the miracles he performed. 24 But Jesus did not trust himself to them, because he knew them all. 25 There was no need for anyone to tell him about them, because he himself knew what was in their hearts.
Jesus and Nicodemus
3 There was a Jewish leader named Nicodemus, who belonged to the party of the Pharisees. 2 One night he went to Jesus and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher sent by God. No one could perform the miracles you are doing unless God were with him.”
3 Jesus answered, “I am telling you the truth: no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born again.”[a]
4 “How can a grown man be born again?” Nicodemus asked. “He certainly cannot enter his mother's womb and be born a second time!”
5 “I am telling you the truth,” replied Jesus, “that no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. 6 A person is born physically of human parents, but is born spiritually of the Spirit. 7 Do not be surprised because I tell you that you must all be born again.[b] 8 The wind blows wherever it wishes; you hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. It is like that with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
9 “How can this be?” asked Nicodemus.
10 Jesus answered, “You are a great teacher in Israel, and you don't know this? 11 I am telling you the truth: we speak of what we know and report what we have seen, yet none of you is willing to accept our message. 12 (A)You do not believe me when I tell you about the things of this world; how will you ever believe me, then, when I tell you about the things of heaven? 13 (B)And no one has ever gone up to heaven except the Son of Man, who came down from heaven.”[c]
14 (C)As Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the desert, in the same way the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.
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.